thesaurus

What are the irreducible semantic units behind any language? I want to figure that out, draw them in 50 or so diagrams, and put it on a poster.

A semantheon has groups of pairs; every pair has two opposite primes, each of which has a lexigraph, a tree of clustered synonyms. A semantheon is a hierarchical map of all meaning, and it can work in any language.

Here are the groups: space, time, quantity, quality, evaluations, emotions, interactions, change.

Here’s a story about the sequence of

Thesaurus runs:

• absurdity: paradox, inanity, folly, ludicrousness, comicality, koan, double think, bathos, travesty, ridicule, doubletalk, twaddle, fustian, galimatias, poppycock, crock, bushwah, flummadiddle, blarney, blather, jive, piffle, dada, preposterous, fatuous, cockamime.

• disorder: derangement, disquiet, discord, disarray, jumble, dishevel

Dean’s Thesaurus: 1,000 words to save us from extinction (logo: dinosaur)

lemma (n.) : a family of words that all share the same words (ie: develop = development, developing, developmental, underdeveloped, redevelop, etc.)

Apparently Microsoft Word said that “charming” and “chocolate box” are synonyms. This is a thesaurus gone wild. I wonder how much computers promoted the idea of all synonyms being interchangeable.

Imagine a “situational thesaurus.” Instead of just unpacking related words, you unpack all the contexts that a word can apply. Examples:

• addle — social media, work, disinformation (dilution from quantity)

• faustian — VR / AGI or e/acc, finance, cloning, influencers, adderall, steroids

• platonic — solids, relationships, education, leisure, cognition

A thesaurus is a word treasury.