A quaternary Cyc-NL semantic predicate that relates natural language words to CycL terms to which they correspond in a certain way. Some words have multiple such denotations due to the fact that they possess multiple WordSenses (q.v.), which word-senses might or might not belong to the same parts of speech (i.e. nouns, verbs, adjectives etc.); thus denotation also has argument-places for specifying both a part of speech (q.v.) and a particular word-sense (as represented by an integer understood in relation to some standardized word-sense numbering scheme).
(denotation WORD SPEECH-PART N TERM) means that the CycL correlate (or denotation ) of WORD, with respect to SPEECH-PART and the corresponding word-sense numbered N, is TERM. Examples: (1) Place-TheWord, an instance of English word, has the denotation putting when used as a verb with its word-sense 0, and the denotation place when used as a count noun with that same word-sense; (2) Ring-TheWord currently has four denotation assertions in the Knowledge Base: sound emission (as a verb with its word-sense 1); audible sound (as a count noun with its word-sense 1); loop (as a count noun with its word-sense 0); and ring (as a count noun with its word-sense 2). An example of a denotation sentence that has a NAT (see CycL non-atomic term) rather than a constant in its fourth argument-position is
Note that denotation is _not_ to be confused with Denotes (q.v.), which relates denoting CycL terms to things out there in the world (i.e. in the intended model of the CycL language).
(denotation WORD SPEECH-PART N TERM) means that the CycL correlate (or denotation ) of WORD, with respect to SPEECH-PART and the corresponding word-sense numbered N, is TERM. Examples: (1) Place-TheWord, an instance of English word, has the denotation putting when used as a verb with its word-sense 0, and the denotation place when used as a count noun with that same word-sense; (2) Ring-TheWord currently has four denotation assertions in the Knowledge Base: sound emission (as a verb with its word-sense 1); audible sound (as a count noun with its word-sense 1); loop (as a count noun with its word-sense 0); and ring (as a count noun with its word-sense 2). An example of a denotation sentence that has a NAT (see CycL non-atomic term) rather than a constant in its fourth argument-position is
`(denotation Density-TheWord adjective 0 (Interval Min Fn Low Amount Fn density))'.
Note that denotation is _not_ to be confused with Denotes (q.v.), which relates denoting CycL terms to things out there in the world (i.e. in the intended model of the CycL language).