Introduction How VSM works Summary Examples Discussion Graphs SciCura About

3.   VSM in a nutshell

VSM  is a language,  communicated through a computer user-interface,
for representing any  ‘piece of information’
in a way that is  easily understood  by both humans & computers.

Reference:   VSM-terms | VSM-connectors: Trident, Bidents, List, Coreference | Principle 1, Principle 2, Principle 3.


  1. When multiple subject/object legs connect to a term: they add context in an interchangeable way.
  2. Non-interchangeable connections: can be created via an extra term and a coreference.  
  3. Bidents that omit the relation: should follow conditions stated in the main text.  

In addition we can add:

  1. Templates: to easily enter similar facts, yet still extensible.  
  2. Head: the focal term of a sentence, e.g. would be term 2 in examples above.  
  3. Coreference between sentences: enables story-building.  
  4. Specific (=default) vs. General vs. Data VSM-terms: e.g. for declaring dictionaries/ontologies.  

Many interactive examples are on

Or just go see the bigger picture on

or go back to How VSM Works