Categorywhether

Categorywhether is a conceptual framework used in formal semantics and information organization that pairs two annotation dimensions: a category axis that assigns items to grammatical or ontological classes (for example object, event, property), and a whether axis that encodes interrogative or modal status (whether the item is treated as a claim, a question, or a hypothetical). The combination yields a two-dimensional label for data items, enabling nuanced analysis and retrieval.

Origin and etymology: The term blends "category" and "whether." It arose in discussions at the intersection of category theory, linguistics, and knowledge representation, where researchers sought a compact way to express how categorization interacts with inquiry and modality. The idea remains primarily within theoretical and applied semantics and ontology work.

Structure and use: In practice, a categorywhether annotation assigns each item a pair (c, w). "c" is the primary class (such as class, event, attribute); "w" represents the status (for example asserted, questioned, hypothetical). This framework supports analyses where category information and inquiry status influence interpretation, reasoning, or retrieval, such as conversational AI datasets, lexical databases, or domain ontologies.

Examples: The sentence "The chair is red" could be labeled (object, asserted). The question "Is the chair red?" could be (object, questioned). A hypothetical claim like "If the chair is red, then..." could be (object, hypothetical). Categorywhether thus provides a compact scheme for modeling combined categorization and modality across data collections.