Phonological Clusters of Semantically Similar Words

Sometime since 1998, a linguist named Philip Grew made three posts to the AWAD board and disappeared. But not without a trace. He wrote an interesting paper which can be found at http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/9/9-1106.html.

Since Philip cited the article, it is possible that the topic has already been touched on on the board. On the other hand, this posting may be thought inappropriate altogether, in which case, please consider it withdrawn. Given both interest and propriety, however, the paper might provide the starting point of an interesting discussion.

The paper is a somewhat detailed discussion of research into the phenomenon of "..fairly well known clusters of similar sounding words that also mean similar things…[e.g:] glisten, glow; glare; glaire; glaze; glint; glitter, gloom, glory, gleam, glimmer, glade, gloss, glum, glabrous, gloat."

It's not a breezeread and, to paraphrase Lloyd Benson (and as I think I have amply demonstrated) I am no linguist; I can't even pretend to gloss the thesis. But given sufficient interest--and if a resident Pooh-bah can be voluntarilly impressed--the Clusters might prove a fun and interesting topic for discussion. Consider this more a suggestion than a post...Any seconds?