itselfor

Itselfor is a neologism that has appeared in online discussions of self-reference and discourse analysis. The term blends "itself" and "or" and is used to describe a hypothetical construct that allows an expression to reference itself while offering an alternative option. Because it is not part of any formal standard, definitions vary by author.

In formal terms, itselfor can be described as a binary operator that takes two operands: a self-referential expression S and a fallback expression A. The operator yields S when the self-reference is coherent and well-founded; otherwise it yields A. Different proposals differ on how to determine coherence, ranging from syntactic well-formedness to semantic fixed points. Some formulations treat it as a disjunctive selector that resolves to either S or A based on a coherence check.

Example: consider S = "This cheese is aged." and A = "This cheese is not aged." The expression itselfor(S, A) is used to illustrate how a system might prefer a self-referential claim if it can be assigned a stable interpretation, and otherwise revert to the fallback. In practice, the example highlights the challenges of self-reference and the role of selection rules in disjunctive constructions.

Usage and interpretation: Itselfor is primarily a theoretical or pedagogical device rather than an implemented operator in programming languages. It appears in discussions of logic, linguistics, and philosophy of language to illustrate how self-reference interacts with disjunction, and to aid thinking about coherence in self-referential statements.

See also: self-reference, disjunction, fixed point.