Across the barren moors and into the murky

swamp
Towards an NSM lexical-semantic analysis of two English
landscape terms

Thomas Schwaiger
NSM-Con2023, June 23, 2023, online
Institute of Linguistics, University of Graz
Point-of-departure mini-corpus: “Skulls in the Stars” (1929)

“THERE are two roads to Torkertown. One, the shorter and more direct route,
leads across a barren upland moor, and the other, which is much longer, winds
its tortuous way in and out among the hummocks and quagmires of the
swamps, skirting the low hills to the east. It was a dangerous and tedious trail;
so Solomon Kane halted in amazement when a breathless youth from the vil-
lage he had just left, overtook him and implored him for God’s sake to take the
swamp road.” (Howard 1929: 49; emphases TS)

(occurrences of respective strings in the story: ‘moor’ 25x, ‘swamp’ 20x) 1/15
Theoretical point of departure: NSM and landscape terms

especially Bromhead (2017) and Bromhead (2018), i.e. “the first extended
study of the lexical semantics of landscape in cultural context anchored
in a human-centred perspective, using fine-grained reductive paraphrases
written in the Natural Semantic Metalanguage” (Bromhead 2018: 3)
“it is necessary for landscape concepts to be explained, in part, through
intermediate concepts which themselves need to be explained via seman-
tic primes” (Bromhead 2018: 14), i.e. universal, approximate and culture-
specific semantic molecules like
‘ground’, ‘water’, ‘grow’ (Goddard 2010: 137, 141, 2020: 25)
‘tree’ (Wierzbicka 1985: 182–183)
‘country’ (Goddard 2020: §2)
..
.
especially collocations, phraseology and productivity of the word or words
in question as important linguistic evidence in the formulation of explica-
tions
2/15
Preliminary word of warning: NSM-layman’s work in progress

While a good explication is

“phrased entirely in words and grammar of the NSM metalanguage”
“coherent”
“compatible with the range of use of the word being explicated and with its
relations with other words, entailments, frequent collocations, and so on” and
“satisfies native speaker intuitions about interpretation in context” (Goddard
2021: 96), and while

“[p]ublished explications have often been through a dozen or more iterations

over several months” (Goddard 2015: 821),

the present study likely cannot claim any of the above points for itself.
But “[a]lthough these criteria allow one to evaluate proposed analyses, there are
no fixed discovery procedures that lead directly from usage data to an optimal
analysis” (Goddard 2021: 96),

so I can at least outline my current procedure based on Howard (1929),

dictionary definitions and Sketch Engine’s “Word Sketches” (WSs). 3/15
Towards the lexical semantics of moor: Online dictionaries

an open area of hills covered with rough grass, especially in Britain (Cambridge)
1 chiefly British: an expanse of open rolling infertile land
2 a boggy area; especially: one that is peaty and dominated by grasses and
sedges (Merriam-Webster)
an area of open and usually high land with poor soil that is covered mainly with
grass and heather [mainly British] (Collins)
1 [especially British English; usually plural] a high open area of land that is not
used for farming, especially an area covered with rough grass and heather
2 [uncountable] land that consists of moors (Oxford Learner’s)
[usually plural; British] a large area of high land covered with grass, bushes,
and heather, with soil that is not good for growing crops

(Macmillan)
[usually plural; especially British English] a wild open area of high land, covered
with rough grass or low bushes and heather, that is not farmed because the soil
is not good enough (Longman) 4/15
Towards the lexical semantics of moor: Howard (1929) etc.

a. a place of one kind (Bromhead 2017: 184, 2018: 20)

b. places of this kind are big places (Bromhead 2018: 21–22)
e. people can see many parts of these places because there
are not a lot of things in these places (cf. Bromhead 2018: 136)
open area, expanse, large area:
Far out on the moors reared up the great oak tree
The moonlight spread like a lake of pale blood over the moor
The moor was an ocean of shadows and the tall grass about them bent
in long waves before the faint wind
– windswept a fairly frequent and exclusive modifier of moor (WS)
the sullen horizon of the moors
over the low hills and out on the moors
– usually plural (13x plural vs. 7x singular): for I knew that now I had the
power to rid the moors of its curse forever (no number agreement)
⇒ possible relation to ‘open country’ (see Bromhead 2018: 150 on fields)
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Towards the lexical semantics of moor: Howard (1929) etc.

f. because it is like this, someone can move in these

places as this someone wants (cf. Goddard et al. 2016: 317)
open area:
It is death to walk those moors by night
thereafter it became death to cross those moors
Last night I crossed the moors
– ‘surface’ prepositions (cf. Wierzbicka 1992: 56): across a barren upland
moor; across the moor; across the dreary moors; across the moors; upon
the moor; they tumbled about on the moor; the rotting oak on the moors
c. places of this kind can be above the places on all
sides of these places (cf. Bromhead 2018: 65)
hills, rolling, usually high land: across a barren upland moor
– overlook only with moor as subject (WS)
d. some things grow [m] in many parts of these places,
these things are not big (cf. Bromhead 2018: 143, 177)
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Towards the lexical semantics of moor: Howard (1929) etc.

(rough) grass(es), sedges, (low) heather, (low) bushes, wild:

rank grass; stunted trees and bushes; trees and grasses; tall grass
g. many things can not grow [m] in these places as people
want (cf. Bromhead 2018: 120, 133)
infertile land, poor soil, not used for farming, not good (enough) for
growing crops: a barren upland moor; the rotting oak on the moors
h. places of this kind are in one country [m], this
country [m] is Britain [m] (cf. Bromhead 2018: 100)
mainly Britain/British: England setting of Howard’s short story
– possessor of moor only: Dartmoor, Yorkshire, Park, Scotland, England
(WS)

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A very tentative explication of moor

a. a place of one kind

b. places of this kind are big places
c. places of this kind can be above the places on all
sides of these places
d. some things grow [m] in many parts of these places,
these things are not big
e. because of this, people can see many parts of these places
f. because it is like this, someone can move in these
places as this someone wants
g. many things can not grow [m] in these places as people
want
h. places of this kind are in one country [m], this
country [m] is Britain [m]
(still many problems, e.g. sequencing, ‘grass’, no ‘think’ component, etc.)

8/15
Towards the lexical semantics of swamp: Online dictionaries

(an area of) very wet, soft land

(Cambridge)
1 a wetland often partially or intermittently covered with water;
especially: one dominated by woody vegetation
2 a tract of swamp
3 a difficult or troublesome situation or subject (Merriam-Webster)
an area of very wet land with wild plants growing in it (Collins)
an area of ground that is very wet or covered with water and in which
plants, trees, etc. are growing (Oxford Learner’s)
an area of land covered by water where trees and plants grow (Macmillan)
land that is always very wet or covered with a layer of water (Longman) 9/15
Towards the lexical semantics of swamp: Howard (1929) etc.

a. a place of one kind

b. places of this kind can be big places, places of this
kind can be small places (cf. Bromhead 2018: 106, 107)
c. there is always (= at all times) water [m] in many
parts of places of this kind (cf. Bromhead 2018: 38)
d. because of this, the ground [m] in these places is not
like the ground [m] in places of other kinds (Bromhead 2017: 201–202)
(ground/land that is [always]) very wet or (partially or intermittently) covered
with (a layer of) water, wetland; soft land:
in and out among the hummocks and quagmires of the swamps
why should I go miles out of my way and risk the bogs and mires?
scummy, snake-haunted pools and bogs
the murk of the swamplands
the dead lakes of the swamplands
– ‘depth’ prepositions (cf. Wierzbicka 1992: 56): in the swamp; in the midst of
the swamp; (down) into the swamp; Through the swamp they went and out
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Towards the lexical semantics of swamp: Howard (1929) etc.

e. many things can grow [m] in many parts of these places,

these things can be big (cf. Bromhead 2018: 177)
woody vegetation/trees, (wild) plants:
half screened by the sullen trees which grew about it (= the hut)
great pallid and green fungus-monsters clung to it (= the hut)
The trees leaned above it (= the hut) and their grey branches intertwined
into the swamp among rotting stumps and rank hummocks
Old Ezra the miser partook much of the quality of the swamp, for he
was gnarled and bent and sullen; his fingers were like clutching parasitic
plants and his locks hung like drab moss above eyes. . .
f. because it is like this, people can not always move in
these places, like they can move in other places (cf.
Bromhead 2018: 133)
– wade only with swamp as object (WS)
– predicative passable, impenetrable and impassable only with swamp
(WS)
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Towards the lexical semantics of swamp: Howard (1929) etc.

g. when people move in places of this kind, something bad

can happen to them because of this
“would also explain the negative connotation associated with [Italian place name Bistagno], as swamps and mud-

filled places would have represented very salient and dangerous areas” (Perono Cacciafoco & Cavallaro 2023: 165)

h. the water [m] in these places does not move (cf. Bromhead
2017: 190, 2018: 162)
i. because of this, this water [m] is not like the water
[m] in places of other kinds (cf. Bromhead 2018: 94)
j. because it is like this, when someone is in a place
like this, this someone can feel something bad in their
body (cf. Bromhead 2018: 63)
difficult/troublesome situation/subject: affective components (g), (j)
– fetid as exclusive modifier of swamp (WS)
“[P]laces were also named after the bad or swampy water attested there, in order to avoid them.” (Perono

Cacciafoco & Cavallaro 2023: 136)

12/15
A very tentative explication of swamp
a. a place of one kind
b. places of this kind can be big places, places of this kind can be
small places
c. there is always (= at all times) water [m] in many parts of places of
this kind
d. because of this, the ground [m] in these places is not like the
ground [m] in places of other kinds
e. many things can grow [m] in many parts of these places, these things
can be big
f. because it is like this, people can not always move in these places,
like they can move in other places
g. when people move in places of this kind, something bad can happen to
them because of this
h. the water [m] in these places does not move
i. because of this, this water [m] is not like the water [m] in places
of other kinds
j. because it is like this, when someone is in a place like this, this
someone can feel something bad in their body
(still many problems, e.g. coherence, ‘tree’, no ‘think’ component, etc.)
– drain (clearly more) frequent with swamp as object (WS)
⇒ further component(s) for human intent in the landscape (see Bromhead 2018: §6)? 13/15
The end

“Far across the fen sounded a single shriek of terrible laughter.”

(Howard 1929: 55)

Thank you for your attention!

14/15
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