samethat

Samethat is a neologism used in discussions of referential coherence in linguistics and natural language processing. It denotes a mechanism or annotation tag that indicates two mentions refer to the same underlying referent within discourse. The term is used mainly in academic or experimental contexts rather than in everyday writing.

Origin and meaning: The word is a blend of same and that, chosen to signal identity between mentions without repeating a full noun phrase. In annotated corpora or data schemas, samethat appears as a marker that links later mentions to an earlier referent. The concept is discussed as a lightweight alternative to full coreference descriptions in some theoretical and computational discussions.

Notation and example: A simple use case is a pair of mentions in a sentence. M1: "the dog." M2: "that animal." Annotation: M2 is linked to M1 by samethat. This indicates the second mention refers to the same entity as the first, without asserting new descriptive content. In data schemas, samethat might be encoded as a pointer or reference tag that preserves the relation across processing stages such as parsing, tagging, or indexing.

Relation to other concepts: Samethat is related to coreference resolution, anaphora, and deictic reference, but it is distinct in that it is envisioned as a lightweight, explicit marker for identity rather than a full descriptive link. Its practical use depends on clear schema definitions and compatibility with existing annotation frameworks.

Limitations and status: Samethat is a hypothetical construct used in theoretical and experimental contexts. It has not been adopted as a standard in linguistic annotation, and its viability depends on consistent interpretation, tooling support, and cross-domain interoperability. See also coreference, anaphora, deixis.