Brand X: LISP Suport for Semantic Networks

BRAND X is a simple representation language implemented as a pure extension of LISP. BRAND X provides the following additional facilities over LISP: Unique and canonical structures, property lists for all objects, labels for all objects, and a syntax to express each of these, supported by a reader and printer. BRAND X is intended as an "assembly language" for representation languages, attempting to provide facilities generally found useful in the simplest manner, without any strong commitment to specific representational conventions. The fundamental ideas of the language are described, an overview of its features and notation is given, and some inherent problems of implementation and semantics are presented.