# What are the primary branches in the category trees



## JohnGlock

I am new and trying to get a handle on how the category tree's work.  I have seen "psychological feature" and "entity" come up frequently, and was wondering if there is a list of the very basic, or primary branches of the tree, please?

Thank you,
JohnGlock


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## panjandrum

Hello JohnGlock, and welcome to WordReference.

I suppose some of our members might understand your question - but I don't.
Please give some more context so that we might be able to help.


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## JohnGlock

When I look up a word in the WordReference English dictionary there are usually semantic relationships shown as trees, such as this one that begins with "entity": 
1 	savior, saviour, rescuer, deliverer
 		a person who rescues you from harm or danger
Category Tree:
entity
  object; physical object
    living thing; animate thing
      organism; being
        person; individual; someone; somebody; mortal; human; soul
          good person
            benefactor; helper
              savior, saviour, rescuer, deliverer
                messiah; christ

I was wondering what the first (or second) categories in the list consist of.

Hope this helps,
JohnGlock


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## panjandrum

Thanks JohnGlock.
I understand the question now - but I don't know the answer 
Perhaps someone will be able to answer for you.


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## JohnGlock

Then we will both know!
Thanks for helping to clarify my question.


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## Nunty

Thanks to the brave question of the fearless moderator I now understand the question, too, and I also have no idea of the answer. If no one here knows, might this be appropriate to the "comments and suggestions" board?


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## coconutpalm

When I closely inspected the category, I see that the scope (I'm not sure about this word) of each category below is gradually becoming narrower and narrower. 
For the example of "savior", I noticed that "savior" in the last but one line is colored differently. 

Is this the required answer? 

I hope I can help a bit, but I cannot quite understand John, though Nun-Translater and Panj said they both understood. I guess my English needs improving greatly!


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## cyanista

As far as I see, most concrete nouns belong to the primary category "entity" and then to branches called "object, physical object", "substance, matter", "thing"(_ocean_) or "event" (_lightning_). Abstract nouns are classified as "abstraction", "phehomenon", "state", "psychological feature" (somewhat unhappily termed, to my mind, referring among others to words like _science_ or _language_) and as "act, human action" (_survival, battle_). The word _category_ itself belongs either to "psychological features" or to "group, grouping" - apparently as it is a tool of classification.

There are probably more basic categories that I failed to mention, besides, verbs have their own categories as well, so I'm afraid someone else will have to correct and complete what I wrote.


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## mkellogg

Hi John,

If you find the homepage of Princeton WordNet (search the web), you will probably find a few articles about it.


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## JohnGlock

mkellogg said:
			
		

> Hi John,
> 
> If you find the homepage of Princeton WordNet (search the web), you will probably find a few articles about it.




I looked over their site for an hour and found nothing about the category trees that helped me.
Thanks for the help though,
John


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## JohnGlock

cyanista said:
			
		

> As far as I see, most concrete nouns belong to the primary category "entity" and then to branches called "object, physical object", "substance, matter", "thing"(_ocean_) or "event" (_lightning_). Abstract nouns are classified as "abstraction", "phehomenon", "state", "psychological feature" (somewhat unhappily termed, to my mind, referring among others to words like _science_ or _language_) and as "act, human action" (_survival, battle_). The word _category_ itself belongs either to "psychological features" or to "group, grouping" - apparently as it is a tool of classification.
> 
> There are probably more basic categories that I failed to mention, besides, verbs have their own categories as well, so I'm afraid someone else will have to correct and complete what I wrote.




Great work!  Thanks.  I have done what you have done; look up a lot of words to try to find out.  I was hoping that the developer of the site was on the forum and could point me to a list somewhere, but I guess he/she/they is/are not here.  Thanks to all who have responded; I'll let you know, if I can find out.
John


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## mkellogg

Hi John,

I am the developer of the site, but not the developer of the database. I know that I have read what you are looking for somewhere...  You might have to download the entire database (from WordNet) to find the information.

Mike


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