Governed Meaning Base (GMB)

This paper specifies the Governed Meaning Base (GMB), a candidate governed substrate for storing, querying, relating, and revising semantic artifacts without collapsing exact source custody, logical work identity, concept identity, evidence, authority, and standing. GMB is proposed as the entry-oriented peer of document-oriented constitutional codices: codices preserve coherent specifications, while a meaning base supports incremental semantic operations over typed entries. The substrate separates exact state, admissibility, and meaning. Each admitted entry binds a semantic payload to type, scope, posture, provenance, dependencies, evidence, lineage, and standing. Proposed mutations pass through a typed decision surface that may allow, refuse, or defer. Receipt existence does not prove truth or correct effect; it records a bounded decision, observation, verification, promotion, or revision. Queries that support consequential downstream action are bound to the exact corpus state and projection policy used. GMB is also positioned within the wider research architecture. Hyperpedia is a curated human- and agent-facing projection from a meaning base; crystalline context capsules are bounded agent projections; and the Crystal Network is a distribution and federation layer through which separately governed meaning bases may exchange signed, scoped claims without surrendering local admission. These are profiles and consumers of a common semantic substrate, not automatic identity mergers. The paper proposes, rather than grants, the relation between GMB, the earlier Constitutional Crystallization Framework (CCF), the Ableman Format Specification (AFS), Constitutional Encyclopedia and Dictionary profiles, MCIR, governed semantic compilation, receipts, and cryptographic phase. It defines the core objects, invariants, realization funnel, failure modes, and evidence obligations needed to evaluate the proposal. Canonical, author, publication, identity, and implementation standing remain separate decisions.