Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary with additional material from A Thesaurus of Old English (review)

The historical dimension in this thesaurus makes its design and method major components in appreciating continuities and changes in the semantics of English vocabulary. The design has seven features: (1) an extensive corpus; (2) entries identified grammatically; (3) entries identified chronologically; (4) an inclusive lexicological system; (5) notes on usage; (6) an almost explicit guide; (7) a model for critical evaluation. The deployment of this design in volume one—the Thesaurus—and volume two—the Index—is selective.

To begin, the entries in the volumes differ: both have entries from the Oxford English Dictionary; the Thesaurus has as well those from A Thesaurus of Old English. Secondly, grammatical identifications also differ. The Index has seven parts of speech to label entries, but also phr (phrase). The listing for verbs distinguishes intransitive, transitive, and reflexive verbs from one another. The Thesaurus has a somewhat wider range of grammatical terms, including verb passive and verb impersonal. As for chronological indicators, these appear only in the Thesaurus.

The lexicological system, embodied in the Thesaurus, combines a taxonomical structure, the diversities of English semantics, and the complexities of historical change. The system has three divisions: (1) the external world; (2) the mental world; (3) the social world. These divisions derive from historical changes in the English language and society. The first division—the external world—includes entries sorted into seven components, from the most tangible—the earth—to those dependent on inference—labeled 'relative properties' and 'the supernatural'. Entries in this first division have also metaphorically furnished the second, the mental world, with distinctive patterns of meaning. Systemically, then, the word horde for the external world largely contributed to the vocabulary of the mental world. The third division, highly varied, implicitly recognizes the mushrooming semantics through time that characterize the burgeoning activities of people joined together in highly varied groups.

Each of these divisions has its own taxonomical structure: seven components for the external world, eight for the mental world, eleven for the social world. In principle, these components and their further categorization involve an arrangement that proceeds from the general to the specific. This alignment from the general to the specific has two scales: the first scale has seven levels for major categories; the second has five levels for subcategories. The guiding metaphor for determining levels in categories and subcategories is that of a structural tree: lower branches connected to those above; the crown joined coherently to those below.

Both the categories and subcategories have headings for identifying paragraphs that potentially contain entries. Even so, headings may appear without any entries beneath them. For example, the heading 01.02.04.13.09 (n.) indicates, reading from left to right, that its set of numbers and grammatical abbreviation place it in the fifth of seven possible categories, its entries nouns. This heading carries, too, the descriptor Particular cultivated/ valued plants, yet commands not a single entry. Such empty categories of course prompt questions on lexicon, grammar, and reference in other languages, too. This example, with its sequence of numbers, arranged in five pairs, indicates that the heading stands at a fifth level in a scale from the general to the specific. Together with its numerical sequences, grammatical feature, and descriptive phrase, the heading constitutes a label for an empty paragraph, one of relatively few.

The wording of descriptive phrases depends on linguistic considerations and on terminology applicable to a subject. The word particular heads the label in the example above and others concerned with the topic of plants. Thus at the seventh level on the scale—01.02.04.13.09.02.01(n.)—the phrase Particular types of fruit introduces a paragraph containing six columns of entries. The word particular, however, recurs infrequently elsewhere: it fails to appear in eighty skimmed pages; a search for names...