Methods of Construction of the Morphological Thesaurus in the Context of City Planning

Abstract

There is terminological ambiguity in the definition and understanding of a number of morphological concepts and categories in the theory and practice of urban planning. Such concepts are aimed at giving an objective assessment of the features and patterns of formation of the material and spatial environment of the city. We have proposed and substantiated the method of forming a morphological thesaurus. Morphological thesaurus is a kind of tool that is used to compile different knowledge within morphology at the general scientific level and urban planning at the special scientific level. Such knowledge emerged in the form of systematized and generalized morphological concepts and philosophical categories. They are capable to expand and develop the current understanding of morphology in the theory and practice of urban planning. This process is implemented in five logically consistent and complementary stages. At the first stage the basic morphological concepts and philosophical categories are collected. In some way they are able to reveal the most important aspects of morphological content in urban planning. At the second stage the grouping of morphological concepts and categories is carried out according to the sphere of their distribution: philosophical concepts and special scientific ones. Special categories are those that relate exclusively to the study of phenomena. They may be related to the formal characteristics of the actual situation and be an expression of their form and structure in accordance with the subject of the study. The third stage clarifies the basic morphological concepts and philosophical categories in accordance with the specifics of the object and subject of the research. The connections between the two groups and the set of concepts are established separately in each group in the fourth stage. They are defined in the second stage. So, a group of general philosophical concepts is represented by a set of philosophical categories: substance → quantity and quality → space and time; group of special scientific concepts is expressed by the following chain of concepts: morphology → morphological research → morphological structure → morphological feature → morphological type → morphological unit → morpheme. The fifth stage specifies the terms and detailed definition of basic morphological concepts and philosophical categories in accordance with the method of their application in the theory of urban planning.