Terms for Treating Paths

As for any division of ideonomy, there are various terms that exist, and various terms that are as yet nonexistent but that should be coined, to help professional and amateur students of paths.

The preexisting terms are of two types: words of a general nature that might lend themselves to the improvement of the study and use of paths, but which are not ordinarily defined with any reference being made to paths of any sort; and words that by contrast are normally, universally, or only naturally used to treat paths, or that ought to have-but have been passed over for-this role.

There are also words that relate to things more or less synonymous with paths.

As for those words that have not yet found their way into any known dictionary, or been written or spoken or thought of by anyone anywhere or for any purpose, there are rules both transcendental and happenstance that fortunately exist within ideonomy for the devising and use of such words in conformity with the conceptual horizons and methodological requirements of ideonomy, rules that can limit the proliferation and constrain the formation of the words in ways that are simply critical if the language of ideonomy is to be kept simple and elegant and everywhere rational and uniform, as it must be if ideonomy is to win ready acceptance.

Thus the subfield of hodology that specializes in the compilation, introduction, definition, exemplification, systematization, and critique of all path-related terms, or of hodological terminology, will be termed hodolexy, in obedience to the rule that all corresponding subfields of ideonomic divisions are to be named by attaching the suffix -lexy to the prefix representing the basic object of study of that division which in the present instance means the prefix hodo- for the object path, from the Greek feminine noun hodos, signifying way, road, or journey),

There were many other Ancient Greek roots that might have been used instead to give this division its universal name. Rather than using hodos to produce Paths and Hodology) might have had recourse to stibos (masculine noun meaning path, track, or way), tribos (feminine noun for a worn path or a track), oimos (masculine noun for path, road, or stripe; Latinizable as the prefix oemo-), patos (masculine noun meaning way or trodden path), poros (hole, passage, ford, or ferry), etc.

These synonymous roots may prove to be of use in the future, not only in ideonomy but in other subjects altogether, where there may be a need to coin words on a different etymological basis in order to avoid semantic and terminological confusion.

The element hod can be contracted into od, as in the word odometer. I decided to use the longer form in the title of the division because, for once, I was afraid the two-character "od" would be perpexingly ambiguous, or would have a tendency not to be recognized, when it was reused-as demanded by the rules of ideonomy-to form other words for treating paths. Such a switch might still be made in the future, however, if these qualms come to seem unjustified.

The reasons for developing specialized path terminology are many, and include:

Reasons for Path Terms
 

  1. Prevent confusion of path words and concepts with words and concepts of other Divisions and fields;
  2. Enable paths to be described in a precise, economical, and elegant manner;
  3. Distinguish different path concepts;
  4. Dramatize the key concepts and methods for treating paths and aid their recall;
  5. Standardize the discussion of paths at all times and places and in all subjects;
  6. Facilitate the construction of compact ideogenetic formulas, and the interpretation of the propositions they generate;
  7. In the process of being formed, or of later being used, are apt to lead to the discovery of many important path-related concepts;
  8. Promote the theoretical and operational unity of the Division.

Some of the most obvious terminology for paths can be developed by adding prefixes to the word path. Different types and senses of paths can be conceptualized and named in this way.

Whenever possible use should be made of Ancient Greek prefixes or of prefixes formed from Ancient Greek words. This is especially so if the new ideonomic terms are meant to refer to basic, high-level, or important ideonomic concepts.

When such prefixes are unavailable, or unknown to the neologist, use should be made of Latin roots. In certain circumstances English prefixes and combining forms may be used (such as over). In rare instances the roots of still other languages may be-used (e.g. the Sanskrit combining forms eka- and dvi-).

Attention should always and above all be paid to the prefixes and roots that are used most or most relevantly throughout ideonomy, and to the ways in which they are used and ways in which they are defined. Thus standard prefixes are reused in all of the divisions of ideonomy to form classes of kindred words.

Some proposed words formed in this way are to be seen in the table Terminology For 'Paths'. Let it be emphasized that this jargon is tentative. Certain prefixes should perhaps be replaced or modified. Certain definitions may be wrong, misleading, too broad or narrow, or wrongly plural or singular. Some of the words may be redundant or too trivial in meaning. A few of the pairs of prefixes should perhaps be transposed.

But what this terminology certainly does suggest is how a cognitive language can be fashioned within ideonomy for the topic of paths.

Let us discuss some of these path terms and the things they may mean. In this way we can get a sense of how the words would actually be used and of the difference they could make. It will be seen that each of them has many implications and represents a small ideonomic experiment.

Incidentally, in certain contexts it might be desirable to follow the prefix of many or all of these words by a hyphen (e.g. to write endopath instead as endo-path). This practice is especially justified when a new word is just beginning to be used or is being used tentatively or as a nonce term. Since the following element in every case here is identical (path), a hyphen seemed superfluous and has been omitted.

Endopath:

An internal path or path that is internal to something. Examples of endopaths are blood vessels in the body, lava tubes in lava flows or fields, phloem and xylem vessels inside plant stems and leaves, computer circuitry or wires, and the poorly known intranuclear paths of nucleons (protons and neutrons) and their intermediate vector particles.

Questions about endopaths immediately come to mind: Are the paths formed from the substance of what encloses them or they occur in? May the endopaths have their own endopaths? How may different endopaths interact? Are the endopaths critical to the properties of their enclosure? Are endopaths more nearly static or dynamic? Are they isolated; are they connected with antonymous paths ("exopaths")? Do they either start or end as endopaths?

Subpath

This could variously refer to a path that is lesser, subordinate, or auxiliary, a segment or branch of a path, a member of a (set, collection, hierarchy, group, or taxon) of paths, a part of a (coaxial bundle, line-clump, convergence, divergence, vergence, network, array, system, pencil, etc) of paths, a lesser-order path (logically, structurally, functionally, e/vc), etc.

For instance, when a large meteor plunges through the atmosphere, the primary path of the meteorite may be complicated by subpaths of its asymmetric corners, of its numberless textural points, of its course's discrete stages, of its vaporous, smoky, and dusty tail, of fragments or companions, and of its rotational or even chaotic motions.

The number of subpaths-meanders, parallel strands, or finest-scale branches-followed by cloud-ground electric currents precedent to any lightning stroke might be important in terms of their initiational, discouraging, directive, or morphogenetic effect, predictive potential, complex interactions, or summability in the genesis of a lightning flash.

Superpath

The word denotes paths opposite in nature or type to the above.

If, say, an object follows a path, then, in effect, that path itself may follow a path on some higher level.

Meteoroids pursue subpaths within the superpath that the swarm they are a part of follows.

It is often important to determine whether a moving object that interests one happens to be simultaneously-or diachronically-pursuing both a subpath and a superpath. The superpath may be hidden by motions along one or more subpaths that are more noticeable because they are faster, higher-frequency, on one's own scale, or more marked, and yet the superpath motions may be more important or fundamental.