termswhether

Termswhether is a coined term used in speculative linguistics and logic to denote an operator that links a set of terms to a whether-clause, signaling a question about which terms satisfy a given property. The name combines terms with whether to emphasize that the construct asks a question about term membership under a condition. In hypothetical or classroom contexts, termswhether helps formalize how lists of terms interact with conditional inquiries.

Origin and status: The term appears in fictional discussions and thought experiments designed to explore the syntax of compound interrogatives. It is not an established term in peer‑reviewed linguistics or formal logic as of this writing, and references to it typically appear in illustrative or speculative material rather than standard reference works.

Definition and notation: For a finite set T and a predicate P, termswhether(T, P) denotes the subset {t in T | P(t)}. In a truth-conditional reading, the operator can express a question about members of T under the condition P, or it can be used to enumerate those terms that satisfy P. The construct can also be interpreted as indicating whether any term in T meets P, yielding a boolean result in some formulations.

Example: Let T = {red, green, blue, yellow} and P(t) = "t is a primary color in the additive system." Then termswhether(T, P) = {red, green, blue}. If P(t) = "t has more than four letters," termswhether(T, P) = {yellow}.

See also: whether, set notation, formal language, predicate logic. Note: Termswhether remains a fictional or speculative concept and has no widely adopted formal syntax or semantics in real-world scholarly usage.