Semantic space

This article needs work. If you know about this topic, you can help us by editing it. (See all)

A semantic space is a domain of content words including broad definitions, which map onto a wide range of words in other languages.

Many existing dictionaries present a limited, discrete list of related translations within each Toki Pona word's semantic space, without giving a clearer sense of the size and shape of the underlying meaning. The semantic space explanation is meant to avoid misconceptions with these definition lists. lipamanka has created a dictionary that describes semantic spaces in full prose.

Semantic size is occasionally mentioned to refer to how broad or narrow a word's meaning is. For example, kijetesantakalu takes up less semantic space than soweli.

One element of most words' semantic spaces is the literal–figurative or concrete–abstract axis. The core of the semantic space will be a literal, concrete sense, with metaphorical, abstract extensions which may or may not be familiar to English speakers. This has also been expressed as the second quality in Atawans Guide on How To Make A nimi sin™: "every toki pona word is tied to a physical process in some way."

References

English Wikipedia has an article on
semantic space.