3D Words

A contemplation of James Joyce's Ulysses.  What I found most interesting was the concept of a 3D object or place being another translation of the written word.  Generally, we think in the opposite direction, that language is a representation of an object, place, motion, concept, etc.  However, I could see this alternate view being useful.  I think of movie sets and movies themselves.  Film translates the language of a screenplay into two dimensions.  Likewise, plays are a translation into three dimensions.  This article supposes the same thoughts can be applied to other literary forms, namely the novel.  It's certainly an interesting idea.  Rather than expanding this sort of translation to longer forms, I imagine it being used on much briefer instances of language: a single word.  What would a 3D translation of a word look like, feel like?  

Take for instance, the word ball.  My schema for ball is a spherical object, not too large or heavy.  In fact, the first thing I think of is a rubber ball just about the size of my fist.  It is probably red, perhaps a result of reading too much as a child.  If you were to drop it, the ball would bounce about one third of the way back to your hand.  Now that is a ball.  But would the word ball incarnate look like that?  It has to be able to represent every ball in the world and everything the word has ever been used to describe.  Can all that be contained in a sphere the size of my fist?  And does that representation have enough of the word in it?  A word owns its sound and the feel of it upon your tongue.  That cannot be captured by a mere physical ball.  'Ball' contains every sound a ball has ever made while bouncing, falling, and being squeezed.  It includes the look of the word in thousands of different fonts and the handwriting of every child.  I don't think all that can fit into one finite sphere.

A word can be translated into a physical representation of one person's schema for that word.  But a word can never be completely three dimensional.  It would no longer be a word.