formterm

Formterm is a coinage used in discussions of formal representation to denote the surface form of a term, i.e., the observable or tokenized realization of a unit of meaning in a given language, document, or formal system. The term is intended to distinguish between how a term appears in text or code (its form) and what it denotes in abstraction (its lemma or underlying meaning).

In linguistics and natural language processing, formterms help separate inflectional or orthographic variation from the abstract entry. In programming languages, a formterm can refer to the concrete syntax token or sequence that represents a symbolic term, distinct from its parsed semantic value. In knowledge representation, formterms are the concrete labels or identifiers used in graphs or databases.

Examples: the noun lemma "dog" has the formterm "dogs" when pluralized in English, and the verb lemma "to run" has forms "run," "runs," "ran," and "running" as corresponding formterms depending on tense and aspect. A case-insensitive view treats "Dog" and "dog" as the same underlying term but different surface forms.

Formterm is closely related to, yet distinct from, concepts such as lemma, canonical form, surface form, and inflected form. Its use varies by field, and some communities may prefer terminology such as "surface form" or "inflected form" when describing the same idea.