Formswhere

Formswhere is a term used in computational linguistics and lexical databases to describe a framework for organizing inflected word forms and the contexts in which they occur. The idea is to pair each form with metadata about its lemma, part of speech, morphosyntactic features, and the linguistic location—such as dialect, region, or register—where that form is attested. The goal is to enable precise retrieval and disambiguation of forms across languages and domains.

A typical formswhere data model includes Lemma, Form, Features, Locale or Dialect, and Usage or Domain. A lemma may have multiple forms, each characterized by a feature set (for example tense, mood, number, gender) and linked to one or more locations where that form is appropriate. Cross-language mappings also allow corresponding forms to be shown for related lemmas.

Applications include morphological analysis and generation, dictionary search with locale-aware results, language learning tools, and cross-lingual search systems. By incorporating location metadata, formswhere supports more accurate form selection in natural language generation and reduces ambiguity in user interfaces.

Formswhere is often described as a refinement of traditional inflection dictionaries or morphological databases, emphasizing the “where” of a form’s usage. It remains a conceptual framework with varying implementations; there is no single formal standard, but several projects adopt compatible schemas for interoperability.

See also: lexical database, morphology, inflection, Wiktionary, WordNet, morphological analyzer.