Zuordnens

Zuordnens is a term used in information science and related fields to denote the process or result of assigning elements from one set to elements of another according to a defined rule. The word is a neologism built from the German Zuordnung (assignment, mapping) with a stylized plural/genitive form, and is not part of standard vocabulary in all German-language literature. In practice, Zuordnens is used to discuss how concepts, objects, or data items are linked across domains, schemas, or representations.

A Zuordnens consists of a source domain D and a target domain T, together with a mapping relation M ⊆ D × T. Depending on context, M may be functional (every d in D maps to a unique t in T), multi-valued (a d can map to several t), total (every d has at least one image), or partial (some d have no image). In mathematical terms a single-valued Zuordnens is a function, while a multi-valued relation is a general correspondence.

Variants and extensions include probabilistic Zuordnens, where a mapping carries confidence scores, and fuzzy Zuordnens, permitting degrees of membership. In computer science, linguistics and data science the concept underpins data integration, ontology alignment, knowledge graphs, information retrieval and localization workflows.

History and usage notes: The term appears in some German-language discussions and niche publications as a way to emphasize the act of linking rather than a static label. It is not universally standardized and is sometimes used interchangeably with Zuordnung or mapping.

See also: Zuordnung, mapping, function, relation, ontology alignment.