Cover not available

Article published In: Functions of Language
Vol. 26:3 (2019) ► pp.308–342

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

The semantics of evaluational adjectives

Perspectives from Natural Semantic Metalanguage and Appraisal

 | Griffith University
 | Simon Fraser University
 | University of Belgrade
Published online: 25 November 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.00029.god
Abstract
We apply the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach (Goddard, Cliff & Anna Wierzbicka. 2014. Words and meanings: Lexical semantics across domains, languages, and cultures. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) to the lexical-semantic analysis of English evaluational adjectives and compare the results with the picture developed in the Appraisal Framework (Martin, J. R. & Peter R. R. White. 2005. The language of evaluation. New York, NY: Palgrave. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). The analysis is corpus-assisted, with examples mainly drawn from film and book reviews, and supported by collocational and statistical information from WordBanks Online. We propose NSM explications for 15 evaluational adjectives, arguing that they fall into five groups, each of which corresponds to a distinct semantic template. The groups can be sketched as follows: “First-person thought-plus-affect”, e.g. wonderful; “Experiential”, e.g. entertaining; “Experiential with bodily reaction”, e.g. gripping; “Lasting impact”, e.g. memorable; “Cognitive evaluation”, e.g. complex, excellent. These groupings and semantic templates are compared with the classifications in the Appraisal Framework’s system of Appreciation. In addition, we are particularly interested in sentiment analysis, the automatic identification of evaluation and subjectivity in text. We discuss the relevance of the two frameworks for sentiment analysis and other language technology applications.
Article outline
  • 1.Background and goals
  • 2.Evaluational adjectives in the Appraisal Framework
  • 3.Explicating evaluational adjectives using NSM
    • 3.1Further details on the NSM approach: Semantic templates
    • 3.2Research process
    • 3.3Template A: “First-person thought-plus-feeling”
    • 3.4Templates B1 and B2: “Experiential” evaluation
    • 3.5Template B1, e.g. entertaining, delightful
      • Entertaining
      • Delightful
    • 3.6Template B2: e.g. gripping, exciting
      • Gripping
    • 3.7Template C: “lasting effect”, e.g. powerful, memorable
      • Powerful
      • Memorable
    • 3.8Template D: “Cognitive evaluation”, e.g. complex, excellent, impressive
      • Complex, e.g. a complex film, a complex argument, a complex character
      • Excellent, outstanding
      • Impressive, brilliant
  • 4.Comparing the NSM approach to evaluation and the Appraisal Framework
  • 5.Broader observations and implications
    • 5.1Implications for sentiment analysis and other language technology applications
    • 5.2Concluding remark
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (83)
References
Aloy Mayo, María, Ramtin M. Seraj, Ana P. García Varela, Dan Fass, Fred Popowich, Anoop Sarkar & Maite Taboada. 2014. An analysis of affective words in Machine Translation. Proceedings of the Northwest Natural Language Processing Workshop. Seattle, WA. April 2014.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Andrews, Avery D. 2006. Semantic composition for NSM, using LFG + Glue. In Keith Allan (ed.), Selected Papers from the 2005 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society. Available online at [URL], Accessed 02 Feb 2015.
Barrios Rodríguez, María Auxiliadora & Cliff Goddard. 2013. ‘Degrad verbs’ in Spanish and English: Collocations, lexical functions and contrastive NSM semantic analysis. Functions of Language 20(2). 219–249. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bednarek, Monika. 2006. Evaluation in media discourse: Analysis of a newspaper corpus. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. Emotion talk across corpora. New York, NY: Palgrave. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Calvo, Rafael A., Sidney D’Mello, Jonathan Gratch & Arvid Kappas. 2015. The Oxford encyclopedia of affective computing. Oxford: OUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Carretero, Marta & Maite Taboada. 2014. Graduation within the scope of Attitude in English and Spanish consumer reviews of books and movies. In Geoff Thompson & Laura Alba-Juez (eds.), Evaluation in context, 221–239. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clough, Patricia Ticineto & Jean O’Malley Halley (eds.). 2007. The affective turn: Theorizing the social. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coffin, Caroline & Kieran O’Halloran. 2006. The role of appraisal and corpora in detecting covert evaluation. Functions of Language 13(1). 77–110. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Davies, Mark. 2008. The corpus of contemporary American English: 450 million words, 1990-present. Available online at [URL]
De Smet, Hendrik. n.d. The meaning of the English present participle. [[URL]] Accessed 29 June 2014.
Durst, Ewe. 2004. The Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach to meaning. Theoretical Linguistics 29(3). 157–200.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Enfield, Nick & Anna Wierzbicka (eds.). 2002. The body in description of emotion: Cross-linguistic studies. Pragmatics & Cognition 10(1/2).1–25. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Geeraerts, Dirk. 2010. Theories of lexical semantics. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goddard, Cliff (ed.) 2008. Cross-linguistic semantics. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. Semantic analysis: A practical introduction, 2nd edn. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012. Semantic primes, semantic molecules, semantic templates: Key concepts in the NSM approach to lexical typology. Linguistics 50(3). 711–743. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. Interjections and emotions (with special reference to “surprise” and “disgust”). Emotion Review 6(1). 53–63. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. The complex, language-specific semantics of “surprise”. Review of Cognitive Linguistics 13(2). 291–313. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016a. Semantic molecules and their role in NSM lexical definitions. Cahiers de lexicologie 41. 13–36.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016b. Ethnopragmatic perspectives on conversational humour, with special reference to Australian English. Language & Communication 551. 55–68. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goddard, Cliff & Andrea Schalley. 2010. Semantic analysis. In Nitin Indurkhaya & Fred J. Damerau (eds.), Handbook of Natural Language Processing, 2nd edn, 92–120. London: CRC Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goddard, Cliff, Maite Taboada & Radoslava Trnavac. 2016. Semantic descriptions of 24 evaluational adjectives, for application in sentiment analysis. Computing Science Technical Report SFU-CMPT TR 2016-42-1. Simon Fraser University. Available online at [URL]
Goddard, Cliff & Wierzbicka, Anna. 2010. want is a linguistic and conceptual universal (response to Khanina). Studies in Language, 34(1), 108–123. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goddard, Cliff & Anna Wierzbicka. 2014. Words and meanings: Lexical semantics across domains, languages, and cultures. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016. Explicating the English lexicon of “doing” and “happening”. Functions of Language 23(2). 214–256. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K. 1961. Categories of the theory of grammar. Word 17(3). 241–292. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1985. An introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K. & Christian M. I. M. Matthiessen. 2014. An introduction to Functional Grammar, 4th edn. London: Edward Arnold. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hasan, Ruqaia. 1987. The grammarian’s dream: Lexis as most delicate grammar. In M. A. K. Halliday & Robin Fawcett (eds.), New developments in Systemic Linguistics: Theory and description, 184–211. London: Pinter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harkins, Jean & Anna Wierzbicka (eds.). 2001. Emotions in cross-linguistic perspective. Berlin: Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hobbs, Jerry & Andrew Gordon. 2008. The deep lexical semantics of emotions. Proceedings of the International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC). Marrakech, Morocco.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hudlicka, Eva. 2003. To feel or not to feel: The role of affect in human-computer interaction. International Journal Human-Computer Studies 591. 1–32. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hunston, Susan. 2011. Corpus approaches to evaluation. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jespersen, Otto. 1933. Essentials of English grammar. London: Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kaplan, Nora. 2007. La construcción discursiva del evento conflictivo en las noticias por televisión. Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela PhD thesis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Keenan, Edward L. & Leonard M. Faltz. 1985. Boolean semantics for natural language. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Khanina, Olesya. 2008. How universal is wanting? Studies in Language 32(4). 818–865. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson. 1999. Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to Western Thought. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levisen, Carsten. 2012. Cultural semantics and social cognition. A case study on the Danish universe of meaning. Berlin: Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Love, Kristina. 2006. APPRAISAL in online discussions of literary texts. Text and Talk 26(2). 217–244. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Macken-Horarik, Mary. 2003. APPRAISAL and the special instructiveness of narrative. Text 23(2). 285–312. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martin, J. R. 2003. Introduction: Special issue on appraisal. Text 23(2). 171–181.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2016. Attitudinal relations: continuing the study of lexis. In Leila Barbara, Adail Sebastião Rodrigues-Júnior & Giovanna Marcella Verdessi Hoy (eds.), Estudos e Pesquisas em Linguística Sistêmico-Funcional. São Paulo: Mercado de Letras.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martin, J. R. & Peter R. R. White. 2005. The language of evaluation. New York, NY: Palgrave. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Millar, Neil & Susan Hunston. 2015. Adjectives, communities and taxonomies of evaluative meaning. Functions of Language 23(3). 297–331. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moors, Agnes, Phoebe C. Ellsworth, Klaus R. Scherer & Nico H. Fridja. 2013. Appraisal theories of emotion: State of the art and future development. Emotion Review 5(2) 119–124. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Neviarouskaya, Alena & Masaki Aono. 2013. Sentiment word relations with Affect, Judgment and Appreciation. IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing 4(4). 425–437. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Neviarouskaya, Alena, Helmut Prendinger & Mitsuru Ishizuka. 2010. @AM: Textual Attitude Analysis Model. Proceedings of the NAACL HLT 2010 Workshop on Computational Approaches to Analysis and Generation of Emotion in Text, 80–88. Los Angeles, CA.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ngo, Thu & Len Unsworth. 2015. Reworking the appraisal framework in ESL research: Refining attitude resources. Functional Linguistics 2(1). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Page, Ruth E. 2003. An analysis of APPRAISAL in childbirth narratives with special consideration of gender and storytelling style. Text 23(2). 211–237. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pang, Bo & Lillian Lee. 2008. Opinion mining and sentiment analysis. Foundations and Trends in Information Retrieval 2(1–2). 1–135. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Picard, Rosemary W. 1997. Affective computing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Piwek, Paul. 2003. An annotated bibliography of affective natural language generation. Version 1.3, April 2003.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Plutchik, Robert. 1980. Emotion: Theory, research, and experience: Vol. 1. Theories of emotion 11. New York, NY: Academic.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Polanyi, Livia & Annie Zaenen. 2004. Contextual valence shifters. Proceedings of AAAI Spring Symposium on Exploring Attitude and Affect in Text (AAAI Technical Report SS-04-07), 106–111. Stanford, CA: AAAI Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pustejovsky, James. 1995. The generative lexicon. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Raskin, Victor & Sergei Nirenburg. 1995. Lexical semantics of adjectives: A microtheory of adjectival meaning. Memoranda in Computer and Cognitive Science MCCS-95-288. Las Cruces, N.M.: New Mexico State University. Available online at [URL], Accessed 26 August 2016.
Riemer, Nick. 2006. Reductive paraphrase and meaning: A critique of Wierzbickian semantics. Linguistics and Philosophy 29(3). 347–379. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stubbs, Michael. 2001. Words and phrases: Corpus studies of lexical semantics. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Taboada, Maite. 2008. The SFU Review Corpus. Simon Fraser University, Available online at [URL]
Taboada, Maite & Jack Grieve. 2004. Analyzing appraisal automatically. In Yan Qu, James Shanahan & Janyce Wiebe (eds.), Proceedings of AAAI Spring Symposium on Exploring Attitude and Shanahan, J.G. Affect in Text (AAAI Technical Report SS-04-07), 158–161. Stanford University, CA: AAAI Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Taboada, Maite, Marta Carretero & Jennifer Hinnell. 2014. Loving and hating the movies in English, German and Spanish. Languages in Contrast 14(1). 127–161. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Taboada, Maite, Julian Brooke, Milan Tofiloski, Kimberly Voll & Manfred Stede. 2011. Lexicon-based methods for sentiment analysis. Computational Linguistics 37(2). 267–307. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trnavac, Radoslava & Maite Taboada. 2012. The contribution of nonveridical rhetorical relations to evaluation in discourse. Language Sciences 341. 301–318. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Valitutti, Alessandro, Carlo Strapparava & Oliviero Stock. 2004. Developing affective lexical resources. Psychology Journal 2(1). 61–83.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Varela, Francisco J., Evan T. Thompson & Eleanor Rosch. 1991. The embodied mind: Cognitive science and human experience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vásquez, Camilla. 2014. The discourse of online consumer reviews. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
White, Peter R. R. 2016. Evaluative contents in verbal communication. In Andrea Rocci & Louis de Saussure (eds.), Verbal communication, 77–96. Berlin: de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Whitelaw, Casey, Navendu Garg & Shlomo Argamon. 2005. Using Appraisal groups for sentiment analysis. Proceedings of ACM SIGIR Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM 2005), 625–631. Bremen, Germany.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wierzbicka, Anna. 1972. Semantic primitives. Frankfurt: Athenaeum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1996. Semantics: Primes and universals. New York, NY: OUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1999. Emotions across languages and cultures. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. NSM semantics versus Conceptual Semantics: Goals and standards (a response to Jackendoff). Intercultural Pragmatics 4(4). 521–529. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. Experience, evidence, and sense: The hidden cultural legacy of English. New York, NY: OUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. “Pain” and “suffering” in cross-linguistic perspective. International Journal of Language & Culture 1(2). 149–173. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
WordBanks Online. Available online at [URL]
Ye, Zhengdao. 2013. Comparing the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach to emotion and the GRID paradigm. In Johnny J. R. Fontaine, Klaus R. Scherer, & Cristiana Soriano (eds.), Components of emotional meaning, 339–409. Oxford: OUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(ed.). 2017. The Semantics of Nouns. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (11)

Cited by 11 other publications

Feyen, Tess, Alda Mari, Paul Portner & Valentin Tinarrage
2025. Political orientation in media treatment of police violence: Evidence from modal adjectives. Discourse & Society 36:5 ► pp. 661 ff. DOI logo
Rahmat Basit & Zamzani Zamzani
2025. Bias and Representation: a Value Analysis in Republika Online Political Reporting. Jurnal Onoma: Pendidikan, Bahasa, dan Sastra 11:4 ► pp. 4775 ff. DOI logo
TABOADA, MAITE, CLIFF GODDARD & RADOSLAVA TRNAVAC
2025. The ‘adverb-ly adjective’ construction in English: meanings, distribution and discourse functions. English Language and Linguistics 29:1 ► pp. 102 ff. DOI logo
Arab, Reza
2024. Metapragmatics of Maze (Taste) in Persian. In The Handbook of Cultural Linguistics [Springer Handbooks in Languages and Linguistics, ], ► pp. 383 ff. DOI logo
Kazmaly, Alena
2024. The lexical semantics of personality words: On ‘shy’ and ‘outgoing’. Lingua 302 ► pp. 103695 ff. DOI logo
Labrador, Belén & Noelia Ramón
2024. Positive Evaluation in the Translation of Online Promotional Discourse in the Cheese Industry. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication 67:3 ► pp. 316 ff. DOI logo
Lamb, David A. & Thora Tenbrink
2022. Evaluating Jesus and other “heroes”. Language, Context and Text. The Social Semiotics Forum 4:2 ► pp. 227 ff. DOI logo
Qiao, Fang & Kexin Jiang
2022. Attitudes Towards Global Warming on Twitter. Journal of Global Information Management 30:7 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Sadow, Lauren & Kerry Mullan
2020. A Brief Introduction to the Natural Semantic Metalanguage Approach. In Studies in Ethnopragmatics, Cultural Semantics, and Intercultural Communication, ► pp. 13 ff. DOI logo
Trnavac, Radoslava & Maite Taboada
2020. Positive Appraisal in Online News Comments. In Studies in Ethnopragmatics, Cultural Semantics, and Intercultural Communication, ► pp. 185 ff. DOI logo
S. Bulgakov, Stanislav, Tatiana A. Belousova, Vita A. Kuzmicheva, Vladimir S. Pugach & Yulia N. Yatsenko
2019. LEXICAL COMBINABILITY OF ADJECTIVES AND NOUNS EXPRESSING ELEMENTS OF APPRAISAL. Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews 7:6 ► pp. 978 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 9 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue