Modes of Formation of Subjects refers to the ways in which new subjects and relationships are created or recognized within the Universe of Subjects (UoS). This attribute is considered complex and requires detailed discussion.
According to the sources, the recognized modes of formation of subjects include:
Lamination: This involves construction by an overlaying facet, analogous to making a sandwich by layering a vegetable over bread.
- Lamination 1: When the basic layer is a basic subject and the other layers are isolate ideas, a compound subject is formed. This mode involves one or more isolate facets laminated over a basic facet.
- Example: In "Anatomy of the human body," the basic facet is Medicine, and the isolate facets are Human body (P) and Anatomy (MP).
- Lamination 2: This mode involves two or more sub-facets of a compound facet laminated over one another. Earlier, these were called non-main basic subjects, resulting from components of a host main subject (e.g., canonical/special/environment/system components).
- Example: The Ayurvedic system of medicine is a non-main basic subject where Medicine is the host-main subject and the Ayurvedic system is the system component.
- Lamination 1: When the basic layer is a basic subject and the other layers are isolate ideas, a compound subject is formed. This mode involves one or more isolate facets laminated over a basic facet.
Loose Assemblage: This involves assembling together two or more subjects (basic or compound), or isolate ideas (in the same facet or array), to express a mutual relation. The result is a complex subject, complex isolate idea, or complex array isolate idea. Loose assemblage is categorized into three kinds:
- Loose Assemblage of Kind-1 (Inter-subject phase relation): Two or more simple or compound subjects are studied in their mutual relationship. The resulting subjects are complex subjects. Relations can include General, Bias, Comparison, Difference, and Influencing.
- Example: "Statistics for librarians".
- Loose Assemblage of Kind-2 (Intra-facet phase relation): Two or more isolates taken from the same schedule are brought into a mutual relationship, resulting in a complex isolate.
- Example: "Influence of Buddhism on Christianity".
- Loose Assemblage of Kind-3 (Intra-array phase relation): Two or more isolates taken from the same array of an order higher than I in the same schedule are brought into mutual relation, resulting in a complex array isolate.
- Loose Assemblage of Kind-1 (Inter-subject phase relation): Two or more simple or compound subjects are studied in their mutual relationship. The resulting subjects are complex subjects. Relations can include General, Bias, Comparison, Difference, and Influencing.
Fission: This is the process of division or splitting or breaking up into parts. The initial set of Primary Basic Subjects (PBS) often results from a division/fission of the UoS.
- Dissection: The term used to denote fission when considering an array of divisions of an isolate or of a basic subject.
- Denudation: The term used to denote fission when considering one and only one of the subdivisions of an isolate or Basic Subject (BS). Denudation involves the progressive decrease of the extension and the increase of the intension (depth) of a BS or an isolate idea.
Fusion: This mode occurs when a new field of specialization emerges due to interdisciplinary research. Two or more Primary Basic Subjects (PBS) are fused together in such a way that each loses its individuality regarding the schedules of isolates needed for compound subjects. The new PBS may be considered a combination of the host PBS 1 and 2. This is sometimes referred to as a "hybrid discipline".
- Examples: Astrophysics, Sociolinguistics.
Distillation: In this mode, a pure discipline is evolved as a PBS from its appearance-in-action in diverse compound subjects going with either different Basic Subjects (BS) or the same BS. This mode is equivalent to what Boulding describes as "Multi-hybrid with common methodology".
- Kind 1: The new PBS essentially accommodates the theory of a discipline emerging (or distilled) out of an idea(s) occurring as a practice-in-action in subjects going with diverse BS.
- Kind 2: The idea occurs in subjects going with a particular BS only, but there is a trend toward formulating a new discipline with recognized literary warrant.
- Examples: Management (as a PBS), Statistical calculus, Microbiology.
Clustering: This mode involves bringing together two or more compound subjects going with different Basic Subjects (BS) into one document, often due to interdisciplinary team research, without substantial integral treatment (i.e., treated disjunctively). This resembles clustering around a nodal idea.
- Examples: Area study (e.g., Sinology, Nippinology), Generalia person study (e.g., Gandhiana), or study of an entity/phenomenon (e.g., Soil science).
Agglomeration: (Also called partial comprehension). This is the process of collecting together entities into larger masses without cohesion among the components. An agglomerate can be a Basic Subject (BS) or an isolate idea, and may consist of consecutive or non-consecutive constituents.
- Examples: Natural sciences, humanities, social sciences.
Ranganathan noted that Basic Subjects (BS) exhibit these different modes of formation. The classificationist must ascertain these attributes (including the modes of formation of subjects) in the Universe of Subjects (UoS) to give unique, co-extensive representation to each subject.