ofabout

Ofabout is a coined term used in linguistics and speculative writing to describe a hypothetical fused preposition that combines the senses of "of" and "about." In this proposed system, the preposition marks both a genitive/relational link and a topical relation, allowing a single word to encode possession and subject matter simultaneously. The concept is primarily encountered in conlang communities and discussions of experimental syntax, and it has no standard usage in natural languages.

Origin and forms: The term appeared in online language games and linguistic blogs in the early 2020s. It is commonly written as "ofabout," though variants such as "of-about" or "ofabout-" appear in informal texts. Descriptions typically present it as a marker of topic-scope possession, a dual function that reduces the need for separate prepositions in a phrase.

Usage: In constructed-language (conlang) contexts, "the book ofabout climate policy" is described as a noun phrase in which "ofabout" marks the book as related to or about the topic of climate policy. In corpus annotation or computational linguistics, "ofabout" may label phrases to indicate both ownership/association and the topical domain, helping models distinguish who or what a thing is related to and what it concerns.

Relation to other terms: Ofabout is related to, but distinct from, ordinary prepositions and from portmanteau forms. It exemplifies an approach where semantic roles are bundled into a single linguistic unit for theoretical or practical annotation purposes.

See also: Portmanteau, preposition, conlang, linguistic annotation, discourse tagging.