--- title: "The search for Old English semantic primes: the case of HAPPEN" description: "The study offers a reproducible procedure for locating primes in historical languages and extends earlier Old English… Cited by 5 papers here." authors: ["Raquel Mateo Mendaza"] year: 2016 venue: "NJES: Nordic Journal of English studies 15" source: "https://publicera.kb.se/njes/article/view/26842" doi: "10.35360/njes.352" licence: "CC BY (journal licence per DOAJ; NJES: Nordic Journal of English studies)" licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License" canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/mendaza-2016-search-old-english-semantic-primes/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/mendaza-2016-search-old-english-semantic-primes/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/) / [2016](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2016/page/4/) / The search for Old English semantic primes: the case of HAPPEN # The search for Old English semantic primes: the case of HAPPEN **Authors:** [Raquel Mateo Mendaza](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/raquel-mateo-mendaza/) · **Year:** 2016 · **Venue:** [NJES: Nordic Journal of English studies 15](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/nordic-journal-of-english-studies/) ([Nordic Journal of English Studies 2016](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/nordic-journal-of-english-studies/2016/)) · **Publisher:** [University of Gothenburg](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/publishers/university-of-gothenburg/) · **Licence:** [CC BY (journal licence per DOAJ; NJES: Nordic Journal of English studies)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) **Links:** [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.35360/njes.352) · [PDF](https://publicera.kb.se/njes/article/download/26842/21913) · [DOI 10.35360/njes.352](https://doi.org/10.35360/njes.352) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W2337146917) **Citations:** 16 citations (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14) · [5](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/mendaza-2016-search-old-english-semantic-primes/cited-by/) in our library, of the 141,840 papers whose bibliographies we read ## Summary The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) framework holds that every language contains a small set of indefinable meanings, called semantic primes, and that all other meanings can be paraphrased with them. This paper looks for the Old English word that best serves as the exponent of the prime HAPPEN. A dead language has no native speakers who could judge paraphrases, so the author replaces speaker intuition with four explicit criteria: - **Morphological:** the exponent should be a base of derivation, not a derived form. - **Textual:** higher corpus frequency is preferred. - **Syntactic:** direct case government is preferred over oblique, or else the widest range of complementation. - **Semantic:** the word should be close to the prime's prototype. This criterion outranks the other three. Candidates are taken from the HTOED and checked against the Dictionary of Old English, the Nerthus lexical database and the DOEC corpus. Each candidate is then tested against the three NSM valency frames for HAPPEN. The study offers a reproducible procedure for locating primes in historical languages and extends earlier Old English work on primes. The supplied excerpt omits the sections that name the winning verb. ## Key points - The current NSM inventory has 65 primes in 16 categories and has been documented in more than 30 languages. HAPPEN belongs to the category of actions, events, movement and contact. - HAPPEN has three valency options: a minimal frame (something happens), an undergoer frame (something happens to someone or something) and a locus frame (something happens somewhere). - The HTOED subcategory "Occur/happen" lists 26 Old English verbs or constructions, including (ge)limpan, belimpan, gebyrian, (ge)weorðan, becuman, (ge)tīdan and getīmian. The phrase to mannum cuman is dropped as a metaphorical extension of a motion verb. - The DOEC, roughly three million words, covers almost all surviving Old English text. It supplies frequencies and morpho-syntactic evidence, and the analysis is strictly synchronic. - Prototypical HAPPEN has the outer meaning "it is the case that" and the inner meaning "an event takes place." A less typical inner reading is "a situation holds." The author frames this using Functional Grammar and Role and Reference Grammar. ## Interesting ideas - When intuition is unavailable, choose among competing candidates with several ranked criteria, letting meaning outrank raw frequency instead of averaging the scores. - Treat a fixed set of valency frames as an acceptance test: a candidate word only qualifies if it can appear in every required argument pattern. - Prefer the root of a derivational family over its derived members, using a database that records the family's zero derivation, affixation and compounding. - Filter metaphorical multiword expressions out of the core inventory before analysis, so that figurative uses do not inflate a sense. - Split a happening into an event reading and a holding-situation reading. ## For Mova How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests: - **I1** (world): When several WordNet/FrameNet entries compete to anchor one ontology concept, a ranked rule (semantic fit, then morphology, then frequency) gives an explainable choice. - **I2** (frames): A verb-to-frame mapping in prag could be validated by checking parsed corpus trees for each expected slot pattern (bare, with undergoer, with location), and rejected if one is missing. - **I3** (tokens): Linking derived lemmas to their morphological base in crate en would give a stable anchor for grouping related words without a bag of words. - **I4** (world): Compiled verb-class knowledge could flag idiomatic motion-for-event constructions separately, so the event timeline does not read them as literal movement. - **I5** (world): Classifying each happen-type predicate as either an event or a state would tell the world builder whether to add a step to the event order or to set a lasting state. *Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.* ## Institutions - [Universidad de La Rioja](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/universidad-de-la-rioja/) — University, Logroño, Spain · 13 works · 74 citations 📚 Shelves (2): [🎭 Arts and Humanities](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/) · 9,296 works · [🗣️ Language and Linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/language-and-linguistics/) · 9,206 works 🧭 Topics (2): [English](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/english/) · 1,373 works · [⏳ Historical linguistics & language change](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/language-change/) · 159 works ## Cite Cite as: Raquel Mateo Mendaza. 2016. The search for Old English semantic primes: the case of HAPPEN. NJES: Nordic Journal of English studies 15. The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. ```bibtex @article{mendaza2016search, title = {{The search for Old English semantic primes: the case of HAPPEN}}, author = {Raquel Mateo Mendaza}, journal = {NJES: Nordic Journal of English studies 15}, year = {2016}, doi = {10.35360/njes.352}, url = {https://doi.org/10.35360/njes.352} } ``` - [← previous The contribution of Qumran to historical Hebrew linguistics: Evidence from the syntax of participial negation](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/naude-2016-contribution-qumran-historical-hebrew-linguistics/) - [next → Coreference in Wikipedia: Main Concept Resolution](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/ghaddar-2016-coreference-wikipedia-main-concept-resolution/) - [↑ back to papers of 2016](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2016/page/4/) *Updated 24 October 2026*