I'm writing now to share a few thoughts with you on the basis of having just discovered WordNet. I see this as an easy way to identify various semantic systems and sub-systems. It's like a thesaurus, except that it adds definitions, and is much more flexible. Its design is inspired by current psycholinguistic and computational theories of human lexical memory. English nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are organized into synonym sets, each representing one underlying lexicalized concept.
Different relations link the synonym sets.
On the surface, it looked like a neat juxtaposition of related concepts forming a small system relevant to the construction of systems of terms. I think this same mode of analysis is relevant to the solution of many terminological problems. It starts with a systematic look at the needed concepts as identified by descriptive texts used in theoretical contexts, essentially by-passing all the established terms. Frequently several synonyms for the same concept are needed, including polysmes whose relevant sense can be clarified once one knows precisely which of several possible meanings is intended. The fields of linguistics, grammar and lexicography are so advanced that one might assume the concepts and terms they need would be well established and systematic.