ORGANIC REVISION 01 — PROVISIONAL COMPOSITION DISCIPLINE
2 October 2026

The chemical-element metaphor suggests useful experiments: preserve the
identity of ingredients, record the operation, and inspect the resulting
distinction. Semantic composition is not a chemical reaction. These rules are
proposed design constraints, not discovered universal laws of linguistics.

1. Identity is pinned.
   A parent means a registry, tier, ID and exact snapshot head. A name or colour
   without that context cannot settle which definition was selected.

2. Composition has roles.
   A list of references does not declare an argument. State whether the
   operation is conjunction, contrast, scoped application, or a conditioned
   combination. Do not turn “related” into “causes,” “proves,” or “equals.”

3. Attribution travels with a meaning.
   A character's claim, a translation-specific observation, a proposed policy,
   and a general method retain those statuses when reused. The source-context
   boundary is not erased by an attractive metaphor.

4. Scope cannot silently expand.
   Carry the conditions under which a parent is meaningful. A local example
   does not automatically establish a universal law. Additional scope requires
   an explicit argument and separate review.

5. Negation and uncertainty are content.
   “May,” “does not,” “under these conditions,” and “not yet established” cannot
   disappear merely to make a compound more compact. Contrasts may remain open.

6. Paths are not proofs.
   A→B and B→C can provide a reading route without licensing A→C as a semantic
   assertion. Symmetric associative navigation is different from hierarchy.
   Typed “specializes” is reviewed separately from resemblance or analogy.

7. New expression does not require a new dictionary entry.
   Try existing concepts with explicit relationships and literal qualifications
   first. A candidate concept must identify an additional reusable distinction,
   explain which nearby definitions fail to preserve it, and give a case where
   its use would be wrong or misleading.

8. Similarity is a retrieval tool.
   Name uniqueness and word-overlap screening detect some repetition. They do
   not prove semantic novelty, synonymy, contradiction or equivalence. Candidate
   meanings remain unallocated until admission is separately decided.

9. Derivations stay inspectable.
   Keep the parents, operation, scope, proposed distinction, counterexample,
   nearby concepts, authorial status and review decision. A later correction
   should be able to explain what changed without rewriting old snapshots.

10. Validation has limits.
    The local lab checks IDs, snapshots, allowed operations, text bounds,
    duplicate names/definitions and the presence of review fields. It does not
    mechanically prove that scope, attribution, uncertainty or meaning survived.
    Those semantic obligations are listed explicitly for a reviewer.

The separate scientific task is to test whether these constraints improve
understanding and correction across receivers. This release performs graph
navigation stress tests and structural validation. It contains no independent
receiver experiment demonstrating a law of semantic growth.

Related technical foundations
W3C SKOS Reference: https://www.w3.org/TR/skos-reference/
  In particular, association is not transitive entailment; hierarchy is distinct.
W3C PROV-O: https://www.w3.org/TR/prov-o/
  A foundation for distinguishing entities, activities and provenance.

This application does not claim full SKOS or PROV conformance. Its five local
relationship labels and admission workflow are explicitly experimental.
