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2023 Harold Taylor Prize

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Semantic Primes

by Claire H. McCabe

So much buzzword up inside the corpus. Sting, to me I mean. A lovely grouping. I. Evaluators: GOOD, BAD continuum, to Antonym, is double-helix fused. bubble of indictment. Lexical contusion. pulsing orb of joybreak. burst sweet pangs/ confusion. shard sharp amity. Polysemy respin. great, and still degrading. adore, abhor, resent. II. Actions, events, movement: DO, HAPPEN, MOVE inundating highway. artery pass threshold. marking rhyming staining. overspilling vessel. Passing through the traffic. oxygenize speed. trans/ verse spotted cosmos. Having need of leave. spinal cross your trestle to rote physiology. III. Existence and possession: THERE IS/EXIST, HAVE Dactylic protrusions– spin your limns toe your Lines know Defines by your longly braining. –born from when your Proto-den bred Terms and bore conditions– You have - bend boughs as willows. shake ossified trees. your fruits, at home Taxonomized to Family Termings. IV. Time: WHEN/TIME, NOW, BEFORE, AFTER, A LONG TIME, A SHORT TIME, FOR SOME TIME, MOMENT silhouetted framing. Diachronic muse. ether, really needed - shade of Interlude. lesion spoken sealing. stack bars into Primes. Corporeal notation. Form and staff sublime. Cadence be contagious border rhythmic old disease. clock Synchronic Changes. fact/or metronome to be. unfold and now untwining till like universe unite. flecks of tonguely refuse litter twisting path to/ night. V. Space: WHERE/PLACE, BE (SOMEWHERE), HERE, ABOVE, BELOW, FAR, NEAR, SIDE, INSIDE, TOUCHING land within an orbit. wholly, in the frame/ work. triangulate as by device. seek Diction. Deictics in abundance: latitude of glee. space/is hedged in havoc. up as though a Peak. bounded close - abounding. trail down lines of sp/ eke.

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