Force pair
Attraction / Detraction
Concentration is not the only productive movement.
Semantic Gravity · Semonika
Gravity pulls.
Meaning does more.
“Semantic gravity (SG) refers to the degree to which meaning relates to its context.”
Karl Maton · Making semantic waves · 2013, p. 11 · paper ↗
That definition measures context-dependence. Semonika places gravity inside a wider mechanics of meaning: attraction is one force, not the whole field.
01 / Karl Maton · Legitimation Code Theory
What the published definition actually says.
Maton defines semantic gravity as a relative degree of context-dependence. Stronger semantic gravity means that meaning depends more on its context; weaker semantic gravity means that it depends less on that context.
Semantic gravity · SG
Context-dependence.
A continuum from meanings that rely strongly on a particular context to meanings that rely on it less.
KARL MATON / LCT2013
Semantic density · SD
Condensation of meaning.
A separate continuum describing how much meaning is condensed within a practice, symbol, term, concept or expression.
KARL MATON / LCT2013
Semantic gravity and semantic density are two variables, not a complete physics of meaning.
Visual bridge
One force enters
One force enters
a wider field.
Semonika keeps the source definition visible, then asks what gravity alone cannot describe: stretching, complementary fit and relation itself.
Relation mode
Complementarity
A relation can work through difference, not only similarity.
Primary condition
Relatio
The operation exists only inside a relation.
02 / Dragan Cvetanović · Semonika
Put gravity inside the mechanics of meaning.
Semonika treats physical relations, forces and transformations as a disciplined vocabulary for operations on meaning. The construction is systematic: a physical function receives the suffix -sema when it is mapped into the semonic field.
Resosema
Resonance: amplification when an external signal meets the internal frequency of a system.
Compresema
Compression: complexity held in a smaller form that must still be capable of being unpacked.
Refrasema
Refraction: meaning changes angle and speed as it passes into another social or media context.
Difrasema
Diffraction: meaning bends through a narrow opening in noise and passes an obstacle while retaining form.
Intersema
Interference: signals can reinforce one another or cancel one another.
Doplesema
Doppler relation: the apparent frequency changes as a signal approaches or recedes in time.
Polarisema
Polarisation: a signal is filtered until it oscillates in one imposed plane.
Absorbsema
Absorption: a signal enters the system but returns no reflection, decision or action.
Gravity only pulls. Semonika also compresses, stretches, refracts, diffracts, resonates, interferes, scatters and absorbs.
03 / Operations on text
A text can be worked like a physical system.
These terms become useful when they change an editorial decision. The point is not to decorate criticism with physics, but to name what the text is doing and where the transfer of meaning fails.
Detraction / critical stretching
Stretch while the thread still carries meaning.
Context, rhythm, texture and time can enrich a passage. Once the load-bearing relation weakens or breaks, productive stretching becomes a floskula.
Defloskulizacija
Remove expansion that no longer carries meaning.
This is not automatic shortening. It is the removal of words, images or structures that continue after the semantic thread has lost its load.
Compresema
Compress without destroying the structure.
A sentence may become shorter and stronger only if the reader can still unpack the distinctions it contains.
Refrasema / Difrasema / Resosema
Test passage, obstacle and resonance.
Does the meaning deform in a new medium, pass through noise while keeping its form, or meet a structure capable of amplifying it?
Attention can be returned to its centre.
Hooke’s law describes an elastic restoring force: F = −kx. Semonika uses that relation as an operational mapping for attention displaced from its centre.
DISPLACEMENTRETURN → CENTRE
Physical relation
Elastic restoring force.
The equation and its physical meaning belong to mechanics and are attributed to Robert Hooke.
Semonic mapping
Return of attention.
The mapping of that restoring relation to attention and cognitive centre belongs to Semonika, authored by Dragan Cvetanović.
05 / Semantic memory field
On the web, related concepts attract.
In a semantic memory field of information, similar concepts gather through their relations. Search, documents, links and knowledge structures make that attraction observable on the internet. Semonika keeps the boundary visible: attraction is real as an operation, but it is never the only operation in the field.
06 / Attribution boundary
Source first. Extension signed.
The LCT definition is quoted from Karl Maton’s 2013 paper. The wider vocabulary of semonic forces and operations, their use in writing and the attention-restoring mapping are part of Semonika by Dragan Cvetanović.
KARL MATON / LCT
Semantic gravity, semantic density and semantic waves.
ROBERT HOOKE
Elastic restoring-force relation, F = −kx.
DRAGAN CVETANOVIĆ / SEMONIKA
The -sema operations and their semonic use.
MODEL BOUNDARY
A semonic mapping does not claim that meaning is a newly proven physical force.