Objectsthat

Objectsthat is a coined term used in discussions of language and data modeling to describe constructs that pair an object with a defining that-clause or relative clause. The concept is used to analyze how specification of an object’s properties affects interpretation, querying, and serialization in both human-language analysis and computational representations.

Origin and scope: The term arises from the concatenation of object and that, signaling a dependency between a noun object and a clause that provides specification. It is not part of standard linguistics or ontology terminology, but appears in experimental writings and some tooling discussions to illustrate object-property specification.

In linguistics: The objectsthat construction helps theorists discuss determiner phrases and relative clauses that modify objects. It can be used to distinguish between bare object nouns and those enriched by a that-clause, as in “the chair that was broken” versus “the chair.” The approach emphasizes how additional clauses attach to noun phrases and influence meaning and reference.

In data modeling and programming: Objectsthat can describe structured records where a base object is augmented by a descriptive clause. Representations may store fields for the base attributes and a “that” field for the appended specification, enabling more flexible querying and display of object descriptions.

Examples: In language: “the book that the librarian recommended.” In data: { type: 'objectsthat', base: { id: 2, name: 'book' }, thatClause: 'recommended by the librarian' }. See also: relative clauses, object phrases, data serialization.