aboutnessthe
Aboutnessthe is a speculative term used in discussions of linguistic theory to describe how a sentence or text expresses its topic, or aboutness. It is not an established term in mainstream linguistics, but is used as a convenient shorthand in particular analyses of discourse.
Definition and scope: At its core, aboutnessthe measures the degree to which a proposition centers on a
Theoretical framework: Proponents treat aboutnessthe as a triad: topic grounding (how strongly the topic anchors the
Formalization: Some approaches propose a simple score A(s,t) representing aboutness of proposition s with respect to
Applications and limitations: The concept is used informally in discourse analysis and some natural language processing
Relation to related ideas: Aboutnessthe overlaps with discussions of intentionality, theme and rheme, and topic-focus articulation,