Beghtol, C.: Semantic validity : concepts of warrants in bibliographic classification systems (1986)
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- Abstract
- This paper argues that the semantic axis of bibliographic classification systems can be found in the various warrants that have been used to justify the utility of classification systems. Classificationists, theorists, and critics have emphasized the syntactic aspects of classification theories and systems, but a number of semantic warrants can be identified. The evolution of four semantic warrants is traced through the development of twentieth-century classification theory: literary warrant, scientific/philosophical warrant, educational warrant, and cultural warrant. It is concluded that further examination of semantic warrants might make possible a rationalized approach to the creation of classification systems for particular uses. The attention of scholars on faceted schemes and classificatory structures had heretofore pulled our attention to the syntactic aspects (e.g., concept division and citation order), with semantics being considered more or less a question of the terms and their relationships and somewhat taken for granted, or at least construed as a unitary aspect. Attention is on the choice of the classes and their meaning, as well as their connection to the world, and not so much on their syntactic relationship. This notion is developed by providing an historical and conceptual overview of the various kinds of warrant discernible in working with bibliographic systems. In Beghtol's definition, warrant concerns more than just the selection of terms, but rather the mapping of a classification system to the context and uses.
