NSM within the cognitive linguistics movement: Bridging some gaps

Abstract: Ever since the Chomskyan views revolutionised the scientific study of language, we have been expecting to see groundbreaking results relative to the workings of the human language faculty. Unfortunately for the discipline, this has not been the case. This paper is structured around one one-word question: why? Departing from some general considerations about cognitive linguistics, and some specific considerations about the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), this paper attempts to: a. establish the common ground(s) shared by most approaches currently being developed within the cognitive linguistic paradigm; b. posit some key arguments supporting the thesis that semantic and conceptual universals should corroborate most if not all theses relative to linguistic conceptualisation; c. try and bridge some gaps between a number of conceptual theories of language, arguing that quite a few divergences between frameworks and interpretations are due to opacity of criteria, methodologies and even just terminology; d. suggest that NSM has much to offer to linguistics in terms of solving the above problems. It is argued that a more tightly knit paradigm would allow for a more efficient interpretation of data stemming from research in cognitive linguistics, and which is, as shown in the paper, already yielding quite a few consistent patterns.