What classification scheme exists for grouping words by their meaning, e.g., "words that describe food," "emotion words," and "types of people"?
My concern is pragmatic; grouping words with similar functions can aid in word choice and usage. In other words, I am looking for a grouping method more general than a thesaurus but more specific than the parts of speech. This may be an impossible task given the number of words in existence; thus, I am limiting the categories to "commonly" used words, with the hope that there exists a practical grouping scheme.
Best Answer
Interesting question. Being a natural-born teacher, I've always loved classificatory schemes, which could also be called compartmentalizing, pigeonholing, partitioning, creating rubrics, and probably a dozen other words I can't think of readily.
I suppose you could start with any of the following and see where they take you:
People down through the centuries have compiled similar lists, and other people have re-arranged those lists in various ways and for various purposes. Of course, all of creation is in a sense unitary and interconnected. In other words, there is diversity, but there is also unity. As far as intelligent and animate life is concerned, specifically living human beings, there is only one race of people: the human race.
I hope I've given you an idea of how far-reaching your question is, and how one needs to delimit one's classifications by narrowing the focus, as you have already done to some extent by insisting the categories be relatively simple. I wish you all the best in your efforts!