Frasum

Frasum is a neologism used in some theoretical discussions to denote the creation of a compact, semantically faithful version of a phrase or sentence. It is not part of standard linguistic nomenclature, and there is no single consensual definition. The term has appeared in informal glossaries and online discussions since the 2010s, typically as a thought experiment or case study in text compression and meaning preservation.

Most framings of frasum emphasize two ideas. First, semantic preservation: the shortened form should entail the same propositions as the original. Second, syntactic reduction: nonessential modifiers and subordinate clauses are removed while the primary truth-conditions are retained. In practice, authors differ on how to determine essential information and how to compare the original and the frasum.

Applications and limitations: If formalized, frasum could inform automatic summarization, user interfaces for microcontent, or cognitive-load research. Critics argue that the concept is underspecified and prone to information loss without a robust evaluation framework, and that existing notions such as paraphrase, compression, and abstractive summarization already cover related goals.

Origin and status: Frasum remains a topic of conjecture rather than established theory; it is primarily encountered in speculative discussions and experimental work rather than in formal grammars or corpora.

See also: paraphrase, text summarization, information compression, abstractive summarization.