Annals of Library Science and Documentation 1988,35(2),58-68

LANGUAGE AND INDEXING LANGUAGE

NALIMOV AND GARDIN REVISED
F J DEV ADASON
Documentation Research Training ~ntre
Indian Statistical Institute
&ngalore-560059
MRKUMBHAR
Librarian
Manipur Univel'lity Library
Canchipur
Imphal-795003
A study of the salient features of ordinary difficult to imagine any satisfactory definition
language is necessary for the design of infor- of the term 'language' that did not incorporate
mation storage and retrieval systems in general some reference to the notion of cornmunica-
and indexing systems in particular. This paper, tion" [5]. Language is a specific social means
based on the works of Nalimov, and Gardin, of information storage and transfer as well as
attempts to discuss some of these salient [ea- of controlling human behaviour. It is a purely
tures. Only the relevant characteristics of ordi- human and non-instinctive method of com-
nary language are mentioned, which are re- municating ideas, emotions and desires by
fleeted in indexing languages. The important means of a system of voluntarily produced
features of indexing language and its meta- symbols. Only the communicative aspect of
language character are also mentioned. Com- language plays an important part in in form a-
morl analogical features of both subject ana- tion systems, "the essence of which is storage
lysis and linguistic analysis are presented along of information for use and manipulation by an
with a guage. Indicaters that the Postulate based individual" [6].
Permuted Subject Indexing (POPSI) language, One of the features of modem investigation
together with its vocabulary control tool Clas- of language is the recognition that 'ordinary
saurus, has also the important components of language' - be it written or spoken - is only
an indexing language. a member of a class of coherent symbolic com-
munication systems. All conceivable sym bol
INTRODUCTION systems have been considered as languages. For
instance : the language of music, the language
Language is a means of communication and of dance, the languages used for computer
thinking - for dissemination of information programming etc. But fulfilment of the com-
and to at' extent the creation of it. In indexing, munication function alone cannot be con-
language plays a very special role in information sidered as a necessary and sufficient require-
organisation and documentation. However, it ment for elevating a symbol system to the rank
is not language which is the object of study of 'ordinary language'. Exchange of informa-
here, but rather the use of language to formu- tion may be effectuated not only with 'words'
late and communicate ideas and opinions [1]. but also with other symbols. Also exchange of
A study of the salient features of language is information may take place between a human
helpful in the design of information storage being and a computer and also between inani-
and retrieval systems ir; general and indexing mate mechanism - between two computers.
systems in particular [2]. This paper based on Many phenomena of the physical world can be
the works of Nalimov [3] and Bardin [4] pre- regarded in terms of receipt and transfer of
sents some of the salient features of langugage information. Even photoelectric effect can be
and indexing language. regarded as information transfer. But these do
not become 'ordinary languages'. The essential
LANGUAGE functional characteristic of ordinary language
(referred to as just 'language' hereafter) is its
Language is system of symbols serving the means role in information reduction or synthesis,
of human communication, thinking and ex- abstraction, generalisation; in elaboration or
pression. The primary function of language is expansion; and particularisation or concreti-
communication between individuals. "It is sation - in short, thinking.

58 Ann Lib Sci Docu

 LANGUAGE AND INDEXING
STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE
Signs/Symbols
First, a language is composed of a plurality of
signs - articulate sounds as signs/symbols of
ideas.
Second, in a language each sign/symbol has
a signification common to a number of inter-
preters.
Third, signs constituting a language must be
'common signs', that is, producible by the
members of the interpreter-family and have the
same signification to the producers which they
have to other interpreters.
Fourth, the signs which constitute a langu-
age are plurisituational signs, that is, signs with
a relative constancy of signification in every
situation in which a sign of a sign-family in
question appears. A sign in a language is a sign-
family and not merely an un i-situational vehicle
[7). A sign and its meaning do not completely
cover each other. Their boundaries do not
coincide in all points. One and the same sign
has several functior:s. One and the same meaning
is expressed by several signs. "If signs were
fixed and _each of them fulfilled only one
function, language would become a mere collec-
tion of labels" [3). It is not enough for the
perfection of language that sounds can be made
signs of ideas, unless those signs can be so made
use of as to comprehend several particular
things: for, the multiplication of signs would
have perplexed their use, had every particular
thing needed a distinct name to be signified
by. To remedy this inconvenience, language had
yet a further improvement in the use of general
terrns, whereby one word was made to make a
multitude of particular existences.
Fifth, the differen t signs in a language
should fit into a semantic hierarchic structure.
"I see two things: a chair and a furniture" is
not an acceptable sentence. Semantic hierarchy
among the different signs may be viewed as
one of the conditions necessary for regarding a
system of signs/symbols as a language. The signs
in a language must constitute a system of inter-
connected signs combinable ir. some ways and
not in others in order to form a variety of
complex symbols of different levels [7] .
Symbol system
The structure of language starts with
Vol 35 No 2 June 1988
LANGUAGE
1. subelementary linguistic symbols: the letters
or alphabets, morphemes (a morpheme is a
meaningful part of word - the root and the
affix, prefixes, suffixes etc.):
2. the elementary symbols: the words (a word
is a symbol for one of the smallest com-
pletely satisfying bits of isolated 'meaning' -
a fragment of a text between spaces);
3. phrases (a phrase is a fragment of a text
between two punctuation marks);
4. clauses and sentences (a sentence is a frag-
ment of a text between full stops); para-
graphs and SCi on.
The complex symbols constructed from simpler
ones fcrm a hierarchical symbol system of
several levels. Phenomenologically, thinking is
a proc.ess of constructing complicated symbols
from simpler ones which is outwardly reflected
in the hierarchical structure of language (3). It
is reflected even in the sequence of sentences,
paragraphs and even larger portions of text. A
text does not consist of a sequence of unrelated
sentences. If it did, it would not convey the
intended message properly. In fact, every pre-
ceding sentence thrives to fix the context for
the next sentence, helping the precise under-
standing of the following sentences, infusing a
kind of hierarchy among them. "It should be
acknowledged that logical hierarchy of state-
ments exists in language, but it is so concealed
that in practice, it cannot be directly ob-
served" [3, p.31). The narration of events in
chronological sequence in text is an example
of this kind of 'hierarchy'.
Grammar
In order tc make operative the rules for con-
structing complex logical structures using the
simpler symbols, the symbols are viewed as
belonging to grammatical categories or parts-of-
speech such as noun, verb, adverb etc. The
rules of syntax (grammar) are defmed with
respect to these categories. But Chinese makes
no use of the formal categories devised for the
Indo-European languages. So also the poly-
synthetic languages of American Indians. Sym-
bols and grammar are, of course structural ele-
ments of language; they are clearly seen in the
majority of the symbol systems perceived as
languages [3, p.28).
59
 DEVADASON
Characteristics of Language
In terpretability
A sign system has a right to be called a language
if it can be interpreted into another language.
Speaking to a foreigner we interpret our mother
tongue in the system of another language, and
actually it is not a translation but a mere inter-
pretation. This is because of the metaphors,
special phrases, idoms etc., linked to culture
and historical experiences present in language.
Polymorphism
Consider the following three phrases :
1 This a good mango,
2 This a good lemon,
3 This is a good carving knife.
It is readily seen that the word 'good' has quite
different meanings in these phrases. A good
lemon Should be sour, a good mango should
not be sour; and a good carving knife should
be sharp which has nothing to do either with
the quality of lemon or with that of mango.
Both in every-day language and in many other
languages every special symbol is connected in
a probabilistic manner with a variety of mean-
ings. One of the characteristics of polymorphism
is that of synonymy. This diversity of everyday
language is considered its most essential charac-
teristic and is no longer regarded as an index
of its deficiency. It is due to its polymorphism
that natural language is richer than any arti-
ficially created one.
METALANGUAGE
Languages with highly developed logic emerge
up to constitute metalanguages whereby one
may judge the correctness of statements made
in the object-languages. Our everyday language
is a metalanguage in relation to the. 'language'
of things surrounding us. In terms of every-day
language we operate not with things but with
their names. Making judgements about the
things of the outer world, we try to arrange
them in some consistent structures which is
equivalent to searching for logical foundations
of the world of things. Generally the metal-
anguage is formalised to a greater extent than
the object language. A metalanguage should be
60
so rich that every thing stated in terms of the
object language could be said in the metal-
language; particularly, it should have the means
for constructing names of the object-language.
"The metalanguage of everyday speech uses
the same guage [3, p.39] .
LANGUAGE OF SCIENCE
Components of the Language of Science
Science is a linguistic or symbolic representa-
tion of experience. Scientific development is
reflected in the development of the language
of science. In the language of science the sym-
bols and grammar of ordinary language are used.
New terms (or new combination of old words)
and new meanings ascribed to old words bor-
rowed from everyday vocabulary are introduced.
This gives an esoteric character to specific langu-
ages of sciences: they prove comprehensible
only to the initiated. Terms in science are
closely connected with the respective theoreti-
cal concepts, though on the surface, many
terms seem to be more than names of some
object or phenomena. For example the term
'Raman effect' would seem to be a name of
some physically observed phenomenon. In
fact, the meaning of this term becomes clear
only through the understanding of the theory
of this phenomenon. No doubt, in the language
of science there are some terms which may be
clearly defined. But the meaning changes with
time, together with the development of scienti-
fic concepts. The meaning ascribed to the word
'atom' now differs considerably both from that
ascribed by the ancient Greeks and from that
used at the beginning of this century. The
meaning ascribed to terms change in different
theories though they may be closely related.
Both 'Classical mechanics' and 'Relativity
theory' make use of such terms as 'mass' and
'length' but they are interpreted differently.
Polymorphism of the LangUageof Science
Scientific terms have a more polymorphic
character than the words of ordinary language,
The term 'model' has been studied by Cho
Yuan-Ren [8]. He has given a list of several
synonyms which is characteristic of 'model'
and non-synonyms which are notions contrasted
to 'model'. Scientists express new notions with
the help of rather unusual combinations of old,
Ann Lib Sei Docu
 LANGUAGE AND INDEXING LANGUAGE
well known and familiar expressions. Scientists
have permitted rather differen t senses for old
terms with the emergence of new theoretical
concepts. In science, theories are continuously
changing, but the change does not cuase a
water fall of new words. The new phenomena
are interpreted, through the old familiar ones,
through old words whose meaning is slightly,
continuously changed. For instance, every body
knows the common meaning of the word
'isolate'. In Colon Classification its meaning
is completely changed (that which in isolation
is not fit to form the name of subject and has
to have a Basic Subject component along with
it to represent a subject). In the language of
science, new concepts emerge, and old notions
are often assigned new meaning. Because of its
continuously changing nature, specific languages
of science are accessible only to those working
in the field and thus constantly interacting with
the informational flow in science. It can be
said that, the emergence of a new independent
discipline must be accompanied by the emer-
gence of a new specific language or a dialect of
the discipline. "In the realm of professional
activities too there evolves a restricted and
accommodated language, a so called professional
language. A professional language is developed
and used by people for some professional pur-
pose, that is, performing professional tasks in
a specific field and communicating about them.
A professional language consists of vocabulary
(terminology and concepts) and types of com-
municative acts (including typical intentions).
A professional language is not only used for
talking about an activity field (a universe of dis-
course); it is also a part constituting it" 19].
of course Library and Information Processing
profession has its own professional language and
dialects too.
BIBLIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM
The functions of a bibliographic Information
System are: collecting, organising, storing,
citing and disseminating of documents or· the
information/ideas recorded in the documents.
Such information processing activity can be
generally divided into the following stages:
1. Collection of information/documents em-
bodying information with the purpose of
su pplying most fully, the necessary infor-
mation/ documen ts in accordance with the
request of the users;
Vol 35 No 2 June 1988
2. Information analysis (analytic and synthetic
processing of information/document surro-
gates/ documen ts themselves), categorisation
and systematisation of the incoming flow
of information; and
3. Storage and retrieval of information/docu-
ments and the development and use of
information retrieval procedures with the
use of modern means for achieving the de-
sired results.
of the above mentioned three stages, the second
one namely, information analysis or document
analysis or subject analysis or content analysis
decides the efficiency of the system. It deals
with systematising or organizing the informa-
tion/documents accompanied by classification
and indexing of the information content of the
documents; the creation of new secondary
documents or document surrogates on the basis
of certain rules and procedures depending on
specific tasks of information practice to form
the index me or enquiry me, and the retrieval
procedures constituting the interface in the
information retrieval process. A model Biblio-
graphic Information System is given in figure-I.
Documents are selected, received and their
information content analysed to determine the
subject categories into which they are to be
classified as well as the index terms associated
with the documents, according to a specified
language having grammar, called information/
documentation/indexing language. After the
completion of this analysis, there is a branching
which allows for more than one method of
'organising' the 'files'. The documents them-
selves are stored physically in a pre-defined
sequence constituting the, 'storage file'. Since
only one physical arrangement of documents
is possible without expensive duplication of the
documents, alternative paths of access to them
are provided through the 'index me' which con-
tains the index terms determined at the analysis
step .
The user requests information. She/He inter-
acts with the index and/or storage file. To do so,
she/he must convert his/her request for informa-
tion into a well defined search question to which
the system can respond. The formulation of
the search question again has to be according
to or in the information/indexing language.
When the user is satisfied with the documents
which have been located in response to this
61
 DEVADASON

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SELECTION ANALYSIS _- - - - - -- - -1- - - - --
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I INDEX 1
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Fig. 1

request, she/he reads them to obtain new facts
and ideas. Presumably, she/he will now become
~ gene~ator of new documents which will in turn
find their way into the system.
The nucleus of the Bibliographic Informa-
tion System is the Information/Indexing langu-
age. According to it the documents are ana-
lysed. The creation and organisation of the
'index file' and the setting up of the retrieval
procedures are all based on the analysis of the
documents according to the prescriptions of
the information/indexing language.
Natural language is a tool for thinking and
a means of communication. In such a language
there are synonymous correspondences bet-
ween words and meanings. The meaning of
words, sentences and even speech may change
with time. Hence, the use of a natura1language
as such in information retrieval systems for the
description of semantic contents of documents
is associated with difficult problems. in order
to overcome these problems, special artificial
languages called information languages/indexing
languages/documentation languages are used.
These artificial languages are formalised auxili-
ary languages, created by information pro-
fessionals for use in bibliographic information
storage and retrieval systems. Because of their
formalised structure they are regarded as meta-
languages for information organisation and re-
trieval. They are used in
1 analysing the information content of docu-
ments;
2 formulating names for the information con-
tent or names for the subject of the docu-
ments;
3 verifying the correctness and completeness
of the statements of the names of subjects
of documents; and
4 constructing other information handling
tools.
INFORMATION/INDEXING LANGUAGE AS
METALANGUAGE
In information/indexing languages, the meaning
extracted from the text of a document (denot-
ing the information content), is designated by
concepts and their inter-relations (which are not
necessarily found in the text) by 'adhoc' sym-
bols (descriptors, role indicators, facet indica-
tors, links etc.), in a formalised way. Because

62 Ann Lib Sci Docu

 LANGUAGE AND INDEXING
these set of symbols are external to the object-
language in which the documents under analysis
are written and intended to facilitate the mani-
pulation of these documents in various ways
and for various purposes, they can be called
'metalanguages' [41. They are not only used in
analysing 'what the information content of
documents are' but also in constructing state-
ments of the names of subjects of documents
and also for verifying the correctness and com-
pleteness of these statements. In the formalised
statements of these metalanguages "some of
the 'logical semantic' relations, specifically
those of implication are specified, but not in
the surface-structure of the object-language,
that is, natural language" [10]. Moreover, these
information/indexing languages, though de-
veloped under independent conditions for the
analysis of documents of many different kinds -
not only scientific texts, but also sociological
records, scripture, folklore etc., - have striking
similarities [4]. An account of these meta-
languages has been given by Gardin [11] .
FEATURES OF INFORMATION/SUBJECT
AND LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS
Information/document analysis in the context
of a particular science, obviously implies some
knowledge 'about' the universe of discourse.
There is a need to have a knowledge to write
summarising statements about the content of
the document/information being analysed. It is
left to be decided whether language analysis in
a more general, less specialised field of speech
or writing, does not also imply some knowledge
about that field.
Information/indexing languages do not feel
it an obligation to consider the natural language
sentence as the proper unit of analysis, as a
large number of linguists would have it. For one
thing, the definitions of what a sentence is, in
any given natural language are not so stable as
to provide with a firm analytical framework for
the kind of semantic analysis required in infor-
mation/indexing languages. Conversely, infra-
sentential units often provide a more con-
venient basis on which to conduct the deriva-
tion of information/indexing language units,
which are later chained to one another through
procedures that again overstep the boundaries
of natural language sentence.
In language analysis the priority is given to
syntactical analysis, which is considered as the
Vol 35 No 2 June 1988
LANGUAGE
necessary step by which to initiate the descrip-
tion or generation of natural language text and
to the understanding of language. The standard
unit of analysis is the sentence, as it is more or
less intuitively defined in traditional grammar;
any larger unit is felt to exceed the scope of
syn tactical analysis. The basic language units
for syntactical analysis are grammatical cate-
gories (nouns, verbs, adjectives etc.) and gram-
matical functions (subject, object etc.) of
former times. But they are being further refined,
In accordance with the priority given to syn-
tactical analysis, semantic analysis is confined
to a subsidiary position as illustrated by Katz
and Fodor [12], which still seems to form the
basis of the idea that the properties of 'surface
structures' (in general terms) play a primary
role in the determination of meaning [13] .
But linguists themselves have felt the need
to broaden the basis of language analysis. Grimes
[14] has pointed out that it is unwise to go on
ignoring the findings of other disciplines also
concerned with the analysis of text such as,
rhetoric, criticism etc., and information science
itself, especially since some of the better de-
fined procedures recently setforth in these
areas occasionally unveil facts that linguists
would be ill-advised to neglect. A number of
linguists have proposed the broader concept of
'paraphrase' as a basis upon which to decide the
proper level where sentences should be assigned
the same 'deep structures' [15]. Also a notion
of syntactic analysis as a less discriminating form
of semantic analysis [16], and the notion that
"syntactic structures are derived from semantic
graphs" [17] point to the fact that syntax is
no more considered to be the first step of langu-
age analysis. The derivation of syntactic struc-
tures on 'semantic graphs' is exactly the strategy
adopted in information/indexing languages in
connection with subject/document analysis.
An investigation of 'prelexical' structures,
equivalent to representations in information/
indexing languages, prior to the development of
grammatical transformations has also been
advocated by linguists [18]. Again the adop-
tion of ...•.
'seman tic categories (that) can guide
the interpretation of sentences, independently
of and in parallel with perceptual processing of
the syntactic structure" [19] has also been
advocated. Though some linguists have favoured
units smaller than sentence [16, p. 101-102],
others on the contrary, have demonstrated that
larger units are necessary to provide a proper
 DEVADASON
understanding of 'coordination', 'pronominali-
sation', 'subordination' etc. [20-22]. More
generally there have been many signs of a revival
of interest for the analysis of 'discourse' over
and above the analysis of sentences, as done in
document/subject analysis.
It has also been observed by linguists [20,
P: 32; 199p 297; 14, p.141] that the 'proposi-
tion' defined in more or less logical terms pro-
vides a more convenient analytical framework
than the grammatically defined sentence. In the
presentation of the basic structures that are
supposed to underlie the formation of speech,
linguists have tended to use logical concepts
often very close to those which underlie docu-
ment/subject analysis. From the modest use of
'markers' [12] came the view of semantic re-
presentations as 'trees' from which has come the
broader concept of relation of combination
information 'about the world' that have to be
taken into account for a proper understanding
of language. The function of such semantic net-
works is to provide for the enunciation and
application of rules of 'well-forme dness , that
were presented as a necessary extension of
syntactical theory. The 'presuppositions' have
been given more and more importance later
[23]. Though the notion of 'presupposition'
needs "some sort of conceptual straightening
up" [24] it can still be observed that it is being
used in the same way, for theoretical purposes
just as the notion of semantic or 'paradigmatic'
organisation has been used for applied pur-
poses in information/subject analysis.
Another parallelism with the procedures of
document/subject analysis could be seen if the
kind of 'categories' used in the fomulation of
presuppositions is considered. In brief, the pre-
suppositions associated with a given word con-
sists in a statement of some relational/combi-
national properties of the given word with res-
pect to other words or classes of other words.
The basic idea is that 'role structures' can be
attached to particular words [22, p. 66] in
order to express the range of their possible re-
lations with other words, from a syntactico-
semantic viewpoint. The 'case frames' of Fill-
more [25], the 'basic relation structures' of
Bever [13, p.279-352], the 'mental templates'
etc.) naturally differ according to the parti-
cular word under consideration. However,
identical role structures have been assigned to
classes of words. By carrying the abstraction
process further, a set of 'universal roles' can be
64
suggested. According to a well known linguist
Langendoen : "eventually it will be necessary
for linguistics theory to come up with a uni-
versal inventory of roles" [20, P: 79). Vermier
[26] too has come up with such conclusions.
Such universal roles, then would have to be
of a rather abstract nature (such as Agent,
Instrument, Object, Process, Property etc).
They would thus tend to converge with logical
operators of the kind used in 'syntactical' ana-
lysis, even though the initial purpose was to
account for 'semantic' structures. Specific field-
bound roles have been used in document/
subject analysis for a long time. For example
the various faceted classification schemes for
different special fields. The process of abstrac-
tion leading to the more general 'role opera-
tors' or 'categories' too is a well known path
used in theory of document analysis to relate
semantics and syntax. For example the cate-
gories of Kaiser's systematic indexing, the
Fundamental Categories Personality, Matter,
Energy, Space and Time of Ranganathan's
Colon Classification and his search for 'absolute
syntax' of facets [27, 28]. Moreover the sug-
gestion that "deep structures should be stated
in terms of role relationships rather than syn-
thetic relationships" [19, p. 279; 32, P.62] sug-
gested that broad conceptual framework infer-
red from the practice of document/subject
analysis should bear some (at least analogical)
relation to linguistic theory and language ana-
lysis. Linguists also have come up with similar
proposals. For instance, Grimes' categories:
States, Processes, Actions etc., [14, p. 167-8]
and Bach's new category 'Contentive' to cover
nouns, verbs and adjectives [29] .
Further, meaning representation systems
such as Sager's automatic conversion of texts to
a structured information base [30], Schank's
computerised paraphrase and inference system
[31, 32] , wilk's intelligent analyser and under-
stander of English [33], question answering
systems of Grishman and Hirschman [34 J ,
and of Lehnert [35] and so on, all depend on
some sort of underlying semantic categorisation
and deep syntactic relations.
Formally stated, the common thread bet-
ween the theories of document/subject analysis
and that of language analysis is, the role assigned
to n-place predicates (the term 'predicate' in this
context designates any relation holding between
two, or more entities or any property of any
Ann Lib Sci Docu
 LANGUAGE AND INDEXING LANGUAGE
entity) [10, p. 210], to express semantic as
well as syn tactic represen tations with:
1 the need to categorise the symbols of the
vocabulary (words, descriptors) in such a
way that formation rules equivalent to the
phrase-structure rules of grammar can be
stated adequately with no regard to the
grammatical status customarily assigned to
the words concerned; and
2 the need to account for the derivation of
propositions from one another, as a necess-
ary component, in the understanding of
language behaviour.
COMPONENTS OF INFORMATION/INDEX-
ING LANGUAGE
In documentation/information/indexing langu-
ages, there is a focus on the concept of 'sum-
mary' or 'aboutness' which may not be consi-
dered important in 'other' languages. Infor-
mation/indexing languages are used to formu-
late statements as answers to questions of
the type 'what the information content of
particular documen ts are about'. These state-
ments stand as names of the topics or subjects of
the documents. In short they are languages for
naming subjects for the special purpose of
storage and retrievaL The minimum essential
components of any such metalanguage are [4,
p.147] .
1 The 'lexicon', a list of content terms, either
extracted as they occur in a given natural
language (keywords) or redefined for the
purpose of the analysis (descriptors). If the
list of content terms carry no relational
information of any kind, then the metalan-
guage is said to be 'unorganised' (uniterm
lists) .
2 A set of relational data provided 'a periori'
with the lexicon, irrespective of the way in
which they are expressed (cross references,
hierarchy, tree, factoring etc.), and whether
they be regarded as semantic data as in
taxonomies or as syntactic templates as in
some faceted classification schemes. This
forms the paradigmatic structure of the
metalanguage .
Vol 35 No 2 June 1988
3 To take into account the immensely diverse
relational data observed in documents, a
set of rules of syntax, constituting the
syntagmatic structure of the metalanguage,
which is contrasted to the paradigmatic
structure, not in essence but in use.
POSTULATE BASED PERMUTED SUBJECT
INDEXING LANGUAGE
The Postulate-based Permuted Subject Indexing
language of Bhattacharyya [36-42] has all the
essential features mentioned above. It is based
on
1 a set of postulated Elementary Categories
of the elements fit to form components of
names of subjects;
2 a set of syntax rules with reference to the
Elementary Categories for formulating ad-
missible names of subjects; and
3 a faceted hierarchic scheme of terms for
vocabulary control called Classaurus.
Each of the terms occurring in POPSI language
statements have their appropriate broader terms
prefixed to them. Hence the POPSI language
has been shown as a source language for pro-
ducing and organising associated indexes [43].
It has also been shown as a metalanguage for
computer aided generation of information re-
trieval thesaurus [44], as well as Classaurus [45,
46]. POPSI language is amenable for com-
puterisation of index generation, especially in
producing different types of indexes including
chain index and PRECIS-format index entries
[47. 48] . It is also possible to use POPSI langu-
age in computer based online information
retrieval. In such an online information retrieval
system the searcher need not know any query
language and the system would have built-in
vocabulary control mechanism [48,49] .
CONCLUSIONS
A study of the salient features of language and
language analysis is necessary for the design of
information retrieval systems in general and
indexing system in particular [2] . It would help
in incorporating the required features though
not exactly but atleast analogically in indexing
systems. POPSI has incorporated all the essential
65
 DEVADASON

features necessary for making it an universal
indexing system. Its resilience and amenability
to computerisation has paved the way for re-
search in this direction, the ultimate aim of
which is to develop an online information re-
trieval system which would be user friendly.
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