This page lists semantic maps, along with the sources from which the descriptions and examples given here were taken. A semantic map is a particular way of representing relationships between the various meanings of individual morphemes and families of morphemes, for example the various meanings of the English Dative morpheme to – direction (to the supermarket), recipient (give it to her), purpose (leave to go home), among others.
A meaning is placed on the map if there is at least one pair of morphemes that differ with respect to this function – that is, two morphemes that, apart from the meaning in question, share enough other meanings to be considered 'alike', and thus constitute a semantic minimal pair. Usually these morphemes are found in two different languages, however this is not strictly necessary.
Lines connect meanings such that any morpheme in any language could occupy a contiguous area of the map. This could be conceptualised as a walk across the map to reach the relevant meanings while being constrained to follow along the lines. The map thus represents a number of implicational universals (if a morpheme has functions X and Y then it will have function Z), and makes predictions about the sorts of multifunctional morphemes that can exist.
Judger in expressions of judgement:
Indefinites subordinate to a negated clause:
And in implicitly negative contexts:
Grooming:
Body motion:
Haspelmath describes this as “a kind of passive construction with generic meaning and generally an obligatory adverbial phrase such as ‘easily’ or ‘well.’”