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Updated: 25 November 1997
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NOTE: The paper which follows was published in Knowledge Organization vol.23 (1996) no.1, ppp. 25-33. It is the first of a three part study and discusses the purposes of Onomantics by contrast with Terminology. The second part compares the most important concepts used in Onomantics and Terminology, and the third part will discuss the contents of ISO 1087 -- the Terminology of Terminology prepared by the Committee on Terminology (TC37) of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) -- from an Onomantic point of view. To see the endnotes, put your cursor under a reference number and click your mouse. The bibliography will be added later. The onomantic point of view discussed here is illustrated by concept records derived from the author's paper, "Turmoil Among Nations," and may be seen at "TAN".]
See also a discussion of the Onomantic approach prepared in 1985 for use in the pilot INTERCOCTA glossary for Ethnicity Research.
Does Knowledge Organization include listing or should we view the two processes as different, though perhaps overlapping. Perhaps we can make the question more concrete by thinking about classification. When knowledge is classified, its systemic linkages are highlighted, especially in hierarchies which relate superordinate to subordinate concepts, whole to parts, actions to their functions, etc. -- by contrast, lists enumerate items in more or less random order. For example, librarians assign a serial number to each book as it is acquired, but they use class numbers to connect books on similar subjects with each others: the first generates a list of books in random array, whereas the latter permits them to be shelved in a systematic order. Similarly dictionaries alphabetize entries as lists but a conceptual glossary has to classify concepts in order to learn how they are related to each other. Of course, both lists and classifications are important and they supplement each other -- yet each serves quite different functions. In this article I will write primarily about the systematic framework needed for the analysis of concepts as they relate to the organization of knowledge.
No doubt both principles -- systems and lists -- are sometimes combined: for example, the call number for a book is composed of a class number to identify its subject matter, plus an author number used to order different works on the same subject. The alphabetical code for ordering books within a class is a listing process used to supplement a classificatory process: sometimes, as under a category like novels, a long list of books are arranged alphabetically by their author's names. By contrast, in very specific fields of knowledge, where only a few works have been published, alphabetizing by authors also occurs but it plays a secondary role.
This basic distinction has many applications but here I want to focus on some differences between Lexicography and Terminology, two activities that overlap and are often confused with each other -- I'll explain Onomantics later. Lexicographers focus on lists of words and phrases, preparing entries for each in a dictionary. Items in such a list can be found by their alphabetized arrangement -- to find the meaning of LIST you may hunt for the right entry between LISP and LISTEN. The meanings of these three words have nothing in common conceptually, but each starts with the letters "L- I-S" and this puts them together in a single list.
By contrast, Terminologists are interested in problems of concept representation -- i.e. how best to identify any given concept by means of words or phrases. Equally important, however, is their interest in relations between concepts, how ideas fit together in an organized or systematic way. This compels them to pay attention to classification and to coding schemes that link related concepts. There are two reasons for this interest.
The first is quite practical: in order to find out how concepts relate to each other, one cannot just list them in alphabetical order -- one needs to identify their linkages with other concepts and find a way to bring closely related concepts together -- just as librarians need to bring books that focus on a common theme together.
However, there is a second more substantive consideration. Many concepts can best be defined contextually, often as specific examples of a more general concept (e.g. sparrows are a kind of bird; vertebrates include birds, lizards, and humans). Frequently, they are related as parts of a whole: thus our bodies include hands, heads and hearts. Functionally, the purpose of a shoe is to protect and decorate a foot, or of a text is to convey information. In order to identify any particular concept, therefore, we need to identify other concepts to which it is related in various ways. By classifying concepts, determining how they fit in systems, we can simultaneously establish procedures for finding them in a book or computer files, and we can see how they relate to each as items in a system.
Language (including symbols, like numbers) provides the necessary tools for both processes: for listing words and for describing concepts. Of course, language itself is a phenomenon that deserves careful study -- and we have an important discipline, Linguistics, that can tell us a great deal about language in general, and the many different languages which, of course, support overlapping yet often different ways of coding concepts and using words. I shall not discuss language in general, however. Instead, I will focus on one sub-field of Linguistics, i.e. Semantics. Specialists in this field study relations between units of language and the concepts they represent, i.e. their meanings.
At the practical level, Lexicography is an important field of applied Semantics -- every dictionary contains entries in which, as a result of the semantic analysis of texts, someone has identified a lexeme -- which is what linguists call a minimal unit of meaning in language, whether it takes the form of a word, phrase, or part of a word (affix). Lexemes provide the starting point ("entry word") for preparing an entry, and all entries must begin with a lexeme -- except for those which identify a particular person, place or object, where a capitalized name is used. Normally the lexemes which represent concepts are not capitalized. However, all entry words are linguistic units which can be represented by letters of the alphabet that, of course, can be used to list all dictionary entries in alphabetical order. Since lexemes often designate more than one concept, each entry is likely to contain a numbered list of senses for each of a given word's meanings.
Because alphabetically arranged entries are both easy to place in order and easy to find, most dictionaries are lists. As noted above, the only reason for putting LISP, LIST, and LISTEN together in a dictionary is their orthography - - i.e. how they are spelled. However, some dictionaries have organized words in a systematic way. One of the most original is Henry G. Burger's Word Tree in which a large collection of transitive verbs have been systematically arranged and defined by pairs of superordinates in a comprehensive network. However, the best known example of a systematic dictionary is Roget's Thesaurus, which has been published in a great many versions and editions -- see, for example, the 1996 version cited below in the bibliography. Its founder was Dr. Peter Mark Roget whose interest in human anatomy led him, as early as 1805, to start compiling terms needed to link body parts. He went on, by 1852, to publish his first thesaurus, as he chose to call the book. It organized words by subject field in such a way that synonyms could easily be found. However, no definitions are included in any editions of this work and it remains a list -- though an amazingly useful and important one. Actually, even the data in Roget's Thesaurus can be arranged alphabetically, as illustrated in Thesaurus II.
In the related field of Information Science, thesaurus is used for a different though analogous concept, namely that of a work containing an indexing language. Its contents usually link an alphabetical with a systematic part. Each may be used to index the other. Typically, the former contains most of the information about authorized descriptors and related/narrower terms, but the hierarchic display of terms (with or without notation numbers) provides a systematic way to find related concepts.
The classification schemes used in creating a thesaurus are applicable to the design of conceptual glossaries which specialists in any subject field need in order to help them identify useful concepts and find suitable terms to designate them. However, instead of focusing on words and their meanings, such schemes organize information about related concepts as identified by linked texts which describe their necessary characteristics --this is the primary function of such works. Moreover, like a thesaurus, conceptual glossaries must provide alphabetized lists of designators, usually as an index. Sometimes, however, concept records are also listed alphabetically by "entry terms."
Although the systematic arrangement of conceptual glossaries is a salient characteristic, the fundamental difference between them and dictionaries is reflected in the design of individual entries (or records). Each such component describes (defines) a single concept. The different designators (terms) that can be listed in a single record (entry) are not synonyms in the usual meaning of this term as a set of words with very similar meanings -- rather, they are equivalents in the sense that they can all be used, in context, to represent the same concept, even though, in other contexts, each term may have quite different meanings.
In the previous paragraph, I placed three words in parentheses: term, define and entry. Each of these words has several meanings that are so similar that ambiguity can easily occur. Let me comment on each of them.
First, a term can refer to (1) any word, phrase, or word-component used to mean something reported in a dictionary entry (a lexeme), or it can mean (2) an expression that represents one a concept (a designator). I used designator above to mean the second concept but added term in parentheses because 'term' can often be used to represent this concept.
However, more often this word has a lexical meaning: all dictionary entries start with "terms" (the first of these senses). It would be better to use lexeme for this concept. It designates precisely the units of language that lexicographers identify when they decide whether or not to create an entry. Lexemes are not only "words" in the orthographic sense that they are separated from each other by spaces, but bound phrases and affixes can also be lexemes.
By contrast, although affixes are lexemes, they are almost never designators. Moreover, only those phrases that have an independent meaning are lexemes -- for example, "blue bird" meaning a particular species of bird is a lexeme, but "blue bird" in the sense of a bird colored blue is an open phrase and not a lexeme -- the former can have a dictionary entry but not the latter. However, both bound and open phrases can be used as designators. Consequently, although lexemes are a basic unit for the design of dictionaries, not all lexemes can be designators, and many designators are not lexemes. These words refer to overlapping concepts and they are not good synonyms.
Moreover, another conceptual distinction adds a further complication. Designators are not necessarily linguistic units -- they may also be non- lexical forms, such as numbers, icons, letters of the alphabet, etc. Any symbol or lexeme that can represent a concept unambiguously may be viewed as a designator. By contrast, most people think of terms as referring only to lexical units, thereby excluding the symbols that can also represent concepts in a very useful way. Since dictionaries arrange their entries alphabetically, they can write entries only for linguistic items, not for symbols. But this distinction need not hamper terminologists since both symbols and lexemes can designate concepts.
Although 'term' can often be used without ambiguity as an equivalent for 'designator,' the words have both broader and narrower meanings that hamper clear communication whenever one has the concept of a "designator" in mind. In short, although most designators are lexemes (terms), some are not, and although most lexemes can be designators (terms), some cannot. To use term as a synonym for these two concepts, therefor, invites confusion.
As for define this word normally characterizes sentences which have two parts: a definiendum, as something to be defined, and a definiens, the expression that identifies its meaning.
Most dictionary entries actually contain more than one definition (definiens) because they identify the various concepts that a single lexeme (definiendum) can represent. By contrast, in a conceptual glossary we need to start with texts that identify a concept, whether or not there is any established term (word, phrase or symbol) that can represent it unambiguously. To call such an expression a 'definition' confuses readers who almost always understand this word to mean a text that defines a word, phrase, or affix. To avoid such ambiguities, I speak of concept descriptions but, clearly, 'definition' can also be used, in context, to mean the same thing. Thus "description" and "definition" refer to overlapping concepts that often, but not always, can be understood as meaning the same thing.
Entry is normally used to signify an item in a list, such as a dictionary, encyclopedia, diary, contest or database. It can also refer to the contents of such an item -- how it is designed. Clearly the content of an entry varies with its context -- diary entries start with a date, and dictionary entries begin with a headword to be defined. Among lexicographers, the content of an entry, therefore, is always an entry word (lexeme) followed by a text. By contrast, one can think of a record as a text or object on which information, music, or data is recorded. Although all entries are records, some records do not have the same format as an entry, especially not a dictionary entry -- instead of identifying words to be defined, they might describe concepts to be designated. To avoid the ambiguity which results because 'entry' calls to mind a dictionary entry, I prefer 'record,' or 'concept record,' using a qualifier to indicate what kind of record I have in mind. Moreover, records need not occur in lists as entries typically do -- hence it is easier to think of records as coming in systematic classifications while entries occur in lists.
To conclude, we have two sets of words with related meanings, but one is designed primarily to list and explain lexemes (term, define and entry) and the others help us identify concepts and relate them to each other (designator, describe and record). To use them as equivalents (synonyms) often generates confusion and ambiguity as we shall now see.
These observations help, I think, to underline the fundamental difference between knowledge in systematic forms, and lists. This distinction supports a clear dichotomy between the normal format of dictionaries and the systematic mode illustrated by Roget's Thesaurus. However, both reflect a semantic orientation which, as explained above, starts with lexemes to be defined and published (whether in alphabetical or systematic lists).
By contrast, we need to identify a reversed format based on the identification of concepts rather than of lexemes. Information about concepts cannot (typically) be arranged alphabetically. 1. In order to present information about concepts, it is necessary to understand how they are related to each other in systems because, significantly, the characteristics which identify a concept are linked to each other -- in order to understand any one concept we must also become aware of closely related concepts with which they are associated. Consciousness of concept systems not only helps us understand these relationships but clarifies the import of each concept in a given system of concepts.
The only efficient and clear ways to identify a concept within such a system requires that we (1) describe each concept separately and (2) show how it is related to other concepts belonging to the same system.
Unfortunately, we still lack a familiar term to designate this ana-semantic perspective -- i.e. one that reverses the normal semantic paradigm. The word, onomasiology, has been used to identify any naming process, including both the naming of places, persons or inanimate objects and the assignment of terms to concepts.2 I believe it is important to make a clear distinction between two levels or kinds of onomasiology: one involving the naming of objects, and another the designation of concepts. The former has long been studied and referred to as onomastics. There are organizations and groups devoted to onomastic studies. In practice, those who speak of onomasiology often have its best-known subfield, onomastics, in mind.
However, a second subfield of onomasiology, involving the designation of concepts, is extremely important for anyone interested in Knowledge Organization and needs to be emphasized by contrast with the coordinate process of naming objects. I have, therefore, proposed a neologism, onomantics, to identify this related sub-field. We need to describe the concepts required in any field of knowledge, and make sure that we have designators (terms) that can represent each of them unambiguously. This approach which I call onomantic (or ana-semantic, will now be explained and contrasted with Terminology as a closely related field or discipline that has evolved under the leadership of Technical Committee #37 of the International Standardization Organization where an emphasis on standardization and on the study of terms already established in the lexicon of special languages prevails. Consequently, although terminologists need Onomantics, they also work on closely related non-onomantic problems.<3
It is often necessary, as new concepts emerge, to create unambiguous designators to represent them. I have already illustrated this process by explaining the logic that led to the suggested use of ana-semantic or onomantic to designate this process. There are two basic reasons, I believe, why Onomantics -- as a field concerned with the analysis of concepts and the problems involved in representing them unambiguously -- is crucial for the development of Knowledge Organization.
First, because it clearly rests on the systematization of concepts (rather than the listing of terms) it depends on and contributes to Classification as a familiar and fundamental basis for the organization of knowledge. Readers of Knowledge Organization will scarcely need any further explanation of this fundamental linkage. The core concepts of any field of knowledge are, obviously, both a product of its development and necessary resources for its practitioners. The classification of these concepts also helps to provide tools for the organization of knowledge within each such field.
A second reason for stressing Onomantics is its temporal perspective. Lexicography (semantics) is essentially retrospective: it focuses on words (lexemes) that are already in use, primarily in ordinary language contexts. Special Lexicography, also, is concerned primarily with terms that have already become part of the vocabulary of specialists in any given field of knowledge -- it is, therefore, necessarily oriented primarily to the past, to the analysis of existing texts.
By contrast, Onomantics (ana-semantics) is future-oriented.4 Because it focuses on emerging fields of knowledge in which new concepts are struggling to become recognized, its primary focus is on concepts for which unambiguous designators are needed. Instead, therefore, of looking at words which already have well-known meanings, it must focus on concepts which still need to be clearly represented -- or, perhaps, on the proliferation of synonymous terms for a concept when practitioners are seeking to simplify their problems by reaching agreement on a preferred term for each of the concepts they know they need.
Knowledge Organization shares this future orientation. No doubt in some fields of knowledge, the structures and practices needed to organize its contents have already been stabilized. Such subject fields might provide models for emulation in other fields, but the crucial problems of KO arise in emerging subject fields where the basic problems, concepts, rules and findings are still taking shape. This means that KO is also, essentially, future oriented -- it looks to the future and the need to solve problems that are still seeking clear formulation, analysis, and resolution.
Onomantics, like statistics, offers tool that anyone can use to help develop a field. Imagine that a department of Statistics should simultaneously serve as a Census Bureau -- much of the attention of its staff would focus on demographic questions in which statistical methods play an important part. Mathematical notions about statistical methods could suffer as a result, and outsiders would easily confuse statistics with one of its important applications. I believe something like this has happened in Terminology where the problems of Special Lexicography (compiling dictionaries for special languages), preparing standards for specialists in selected fields, helping to prepare indexing languages (thesauruses) or supporting the efforts of translators to find equivalent terms in different languages, have been combined with a focus on the problems involved in developing the science and methods of Terminology. By separating the onomantic core of Terminology from its various important applications, it may become possible to see more clearly what concepts and terms are needed to help this field develop. Specialists in the various fields where Onomantics can be helpful need to develop the concepts and terms that they alone can evaluate and use. A specialist in Onomantics can help them understand the problems they face and steer them away from the Lexicographic model which really hampers their efforts to understand the most difficult problems they face.
One of the misleading models attributable to Lexicography involves the possibility of creating from the top down a kind of "dictionary" or "glossary" for selected fields which specialists could use as reference tools. I confess that was the idea I had in mind when I first began to work on the INTERCOCTA pilot project for Ethnicity Research. More recently, with the help of my associate, Matti Malkia, I came to see that it would be better for individual scholars, cooperating with each other, to evolve a computerized hyperglossary, using the resources of the World Wide Web, to help each other construct and share an understanding of the important new concepts and designators that they need. Such a bottom-up approach would utilize the expertise of Onomantics (Terminology) as a methodology and perspective to be used by those who best understand the theories and concepts that they require in their own work.
The fundamental aim of Onomantics, therefore, is to help subject field specialists find ways to represent clearly and systematically the concepts they themselves need. This goal imposes two requirements: each concept must be clearly described, and its connections with related concepts have to be specified. A few key concepts are needed to provide the basis for any such enterprise, and I shall speak briefly about them, avoiding some parallel words now used by terminologists -- later, I'll also identify some of them words and show how their connotations differ from those needed in Onomantics.
The first concept is, of course, that of a concept. There seems to be little fundamental disagreement between the usage of terminologists and what I have in mind when I use this word. Consequently, I shall not say anything more about it here except that, for me, it is a unit of knowledge or, more precisely, a unit of nomothetic knowledge. "Nomothetic" is mentioned here by contrast with idiographic to parallel the distinction between onomantics and onomastics explained above.5
All theoretical or scientific work is, by definition, nomothetic: it seeks to establish generalizations based on the observation and comparison of different cases or objects. By contrast, work that focuses on a single object in many or all of its aspects is idiographic: examples include biographies, case studies, historical narratives, and news reports (please distinguish between "ideographic" which pertains to the analysis of ideographs, like Chinese characters, and "idiographic" which relates to individual cases). Although Knowledge Organization can, no doubt, be understood as including idiographic reports about individual objects or cases, it is my impression that normally anyone using this phrase has in mind the organization of systematic (i.e. nomothetic) knowledge.
By contrast, when we talk about how to represent concepts, we run into a minefield of controversy. I shall focus on three forms that need to be clearly distinguished from each other based on the functions they perform. The first involves the identification of the essential characteristics which pertain to any concept used as a unit of knowledge --i.e. for nomothetic purposes, not just to talk about an individual object. The simplest way to represent this format that I can think of involves using the word, description. Of course, one may describe an object too, so we may need a modifier to avoid ambiguity - - for example, concept description is a synonym for this particular sense of the word "description." Here, however, I shall use "description" without a qualifier to mean "concept description," but add qualifiers whenever referring to any other kind of description.
For convenience in communication, it is clearly a nuisance to have to repeat its description every time we want to use a particular concept. Consequently, we need a convenient short form, a word, phrase, symbol, acronym, graph, or icon that can conveniently represent whatever concept we have in mind. For example, the concept of "zero" can also be represented by "0", the concept of "plus" by "+", "equals" by "=", and "Knowledge Organization" by "KO". The form of the representation is not so important as its convenience and clarity -- we have to ask whether or not it represents the concept well enough so that anyone reading or hearing us will know what we have in mind.
For the moment I shall not mention any word already in use to represent this concept -- rather, let me use cue. This word is used in theaters to mean any sound, sign, or gesture to be followed by a specific action. We can borrow it to refer to any convenient form used to represent a concept. Alternatively, we could use "sign" for the same idea, but this word already has connotations in semiotics that might prove confusing. At least, provisionally, let me use "cue" to refer to any convenient short expression that identifies a concept without specifying its characteristics -- readers are urged to propose other convenient words for this concept. Whenever anyone is not sure what a cue stands for, a concept description may be needed to specify the intended unit of knowledge.
In practice, we may not need to use 'cue' very often because there are two kinds of cues, each of which is very important for Onomantics, and we will use them much more often than we do the more generic term which includes both of them.
The first type of cue, and by all means the most common, brings to mind a concept without reference to the system in which it is lodged. If, for example, I say "knife," you will probably understand that I am thinking about an instrument with a sharp edge that can be used for cutting. Thus 'knife' is a type of cue that we might refer to as a designator, label or tag. Without discussing the pros and cons of these words, let me arbitrarily say that, for the moment, I shall use "tag" to mean any word, symbol, or image that simply and conveniently points to a particular concept. After more consideration, I may drop 'tag' in favor of another word, but for the moment, please remember the meaning stipulated for it here -- it is the second of the three forms mentioned above.
The second type of cue is system-bound. It links particular concepts with other concepts in a system. The system may be hierarchic, running from more general to more specific concepts, or partitive, going from wholes to their parts, or functional, indicating what functions something performs, etc. Consider, for example, how we might place knives in a systematic context. Someone doing kitchen work might enumerate useful implements and relate knives to preparing, cooking and serving food. Another may place it in a design context and relate it to scissors, swords and lances, each of which has a related but different set of uses.
To mark these relationships, some kind of coding system is normally used, as we see in every classification scheme. An item in any such scheme can be referred to as a notation. Again, this word has other meanings, but librarians typically use it for a class number found in a classification schedule (see Wersig and Neveling, p.131). I think we can easily remember to use notation here to refer to a cue that identifies the location of a concept within a system of concepts. Typically, notations are symbols, such as numbers or letters, or alpha-numeric compounds: 523, or DCZ, or TL76, for example. Such expressions never identify a concept out of context as tags can -- but, within a particular context, they unambiguously point to a particular concept. Just as a class number identifies a class in a schedule of classes, so a notation in a glossary, like the ISO 1087, points to one concept and only one concept. However, it also helps readers understand how the designated concept is related to other concepts.
To summarize, in onomantics the key concepts needed for concepts representation include these ideas:
{1} any form used to identify units of nomothetic knowledge: concept representation; representation
{1.1} a representation {1} that specifies the essential characteristics of a concept: concept description; description
{1.2} a representation {1} that succinctly identifies a particular concept: concept cue; cue
{1.2.1} a cue {1.2} that identifies a general concept without reference to how it may be linked to other concepts: concept tag; tag
{1.2.2} a cue {1.2} that identifies a general concept as part of a system of concepts: concept notation; notation
Braces are used here to mark notations -- thus {1.2} is a notation that identifies the notion of a "concept cue" in this paper -- obviously, the same symbol will have quite different meanings elsewhere. The notations show that these concepts are related to each other hierarchically: the same relations can be shown by indentations, as follows:
concept representation: {1}
description: {1.1} cue: {1.2} tag: {1.2.1} notation: {1.2.2}
Please note that the three most important forms of concept representation are written here in bold face: description, tag, and notation. The other two identify superordinate concepts needed to show how the three key concepts are connected with each other -- we will not need to say much more about them.
In Part II of this article, to appear in a future issue, I shall discuss the concepts and terms now used by terminologists, as reflected primarily in the text of ISO 1087, the proposed standard of the Committee on Terminology of the International Organization for Standardization, that was published in 1990. The onomantic concepts and terms presented above in Schedule I will provide a basis for comparing and assessing the prevalent ideas used by terminologists. As a prelude, however, let me offer a couple of quotations from leading experts who have written textbooks on Terminology.
No doubt most terminologists agree that concepts provide the core basis for their work. Picht and Draskau, for example, have written: "In the theory of terminology there is widespread agreement that the concept occupies a central position." (1985, p.36). By contrast, although Juan Sager asserts that "...terminology is concerned with concepts, their definitions and names..." he also asserts that "Terminology is the study of ...lexical items belonging to specialised areas of usage of one or more languages... it is akin to lexicography." (1990, p.2). In Sager's view, Terminology "is primarily a linguistic discipline," as he wrote in a definition proposed in 1982 for the abortive International Association of Terminology.
These quotations suggest the contrast between a purely onomantic focus based on the centrality of concepts, as reflected in the words of Picht and Draskau, and the semantic orientation reflected in Sager's work. Actually, the linguistic and lexicographic premises espoused by many terminologists presuppose a semantic orientation. I attribute this to the influence of closely related activities, especially the translation of texts, in which terminologists have been actively involved. For translators, the semantic analysis of source texts is more important than the onomantic effort required to express novel ideas in target languages. Term Banks designed primarily to help translators are, therefore, preoccupied with efforts to understand the meanings of words and phrases as they occur in the texts to be translated. Term banks are also used to support the preparation of glossaries for special languages in which most of the important concepts and terms to be entered are already well established. In them, semantic analysis prevails over onomantic concerns.
Similarly, specialists involved in the design of thesauruses as indexing languages necessarily spend most of their time studying the meanings of words and their mutual relationships. Such growing fields of Knowledge Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Knowledge Organization and Cognitive Science also require multi-disciplinary inputs and cooperation. Terminologists have become actively and fruitfully involved in all these efforts.
An analogy might be drawn with the field of Statistics in which it is possible to distinguish between the work of mathematicians who have developed the field's concepts and techniques and the many fields of application of statistical methods. Similarly, we may distinguish between the conceptual core of Terminology, as a science, and the multi-disciplinary contexts of its various fields of utilization. Among them, Terminography (also called "terminology work") may be understood as the preparation of dictionaries for subject field specialists, an activity about which Juan Sager's textbook on Terminology (1990) offers authoritative advice. Because the Committee on Terminology (TC37) of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) arose in a context where standardization of products, methods and vocabulary were all important, this committee had to invest much of its energy in the continuing struggle to establish and secure consent for standards, an arduous effort that utilizes but does not generate onomantic concepts.
A natural consequence of these many applications of Terminology means that, often enough, they take priority over the core concepts of the field which can all too easily be taken for granted. Persons working on the applications of any field of science are likely to see a preoccupation with its core concepts and methods as too "theoretical" and remote from the urgent daily problems which they need to solve. In this context, it is scarcely surprising that terminologists can easily become impatient with the continuing need for a reassessment of fundamentals.
In fact, the established concepts and terms used by terminologists today often seem to reflect the requirements of the diverse fields in which they have been working rather than the scientific and logical core of the "discipline." Although Onomantics no doubt lacks the intellectual or organizational status that academic disciplines have achieved, it has the potential for contributing significantly to its many fields of application. I believe that if we could recognize the core of Terminology as a distinctive discipline or field of study, we could create a clearly identified methodology and framework (like pure Statistics) which would then provide a stronger basis for carrying out the many tasks which terminologists have accepted.
If this speculation is correct, it may mean that a clear focus on Onomantics as the study of problems arising from efforts to represent concepts as clearly as possible can be used to create such a core. In order to test the validity of this idea, I am preparing an analysis of key entries in the text of ISO 1087, a glosssary which, after frequent revisions, is intended to supply terminologists with a lucid picture of the set of interdependent concepts and terms they need in order to do their work.
The results of this analysis will be published in due time as Part II of this essay. It will show how the core concepts of Onomantics compare with the core concepts of Terminology; it will examine the influence of terms taken from other fields, especially from Lexicography, in the shaping of these concepts; and it will identify some of the important concepts needed by Terminology that have been omitted from the text of ISO 1087. In all humility, this project has been started with deep respect and admiration for the pioneers who were able, despite wide-spread resistance, to launch the very important field of Terminology. The time has come, nevertheless, to move on to a higher level of achievement based on a more soundly rooted conceptual core. I believe Onomantics provides the building blocks for such a development.
