Abstract

This paper proposes a model for the analysis of emotions in which each emotion word in each language is made up of a universal component and a language-specific component; the universal component is drawn from a set of universal human emotions which underlie all emotion words in all languages, and the language-specific component involves a language-particular thought pattern which is expressed as part of the meanings of a variety of different words in the language. The meanings of a variety of emotion words of Biblical Hebrew are discussed and compared with the meanings of English words with the same general meaning; it is shown that a number of the Biblical Hebrew words directly represent the biblical conception of God and the role of God combined with one or another of the proposed universal emotions.