There can be asymmetric relations between two entities. E.g. Parent-child. Both entities are related, but neither relates to the other as the other relates to it.
I'm writing a philosophy paper that treats these kinds of relations in an abstract manner. Consequently the words I'll be using to reference related entities will not convey any information about the relation they bear to each other (e.g. parent-child).
That said, I've used the parent-child relation in the following example to make it more concrete.
Example: 'The wording, 'x is the parent of y', references a 1:1 asymmetric relation from x to y.'
I used from and to to construct that sentence; however, I'm not confident that those are the best prepositions in this case. What preposition(s) do you think are best in this case?
Some other possibilities
- …that x bears to y
- …of x to y (credit: Mari-Lou A)
- …that x has to y
Best Answer
I feel I might not understand what you actually want from your question. Even though, this answer might be way off from what you need, it should be beneficial to you to remind you of the diversity and complexity of relationships you have to consider.
I am tempted to urge you to perceive this as a mathematical issue concerning topology and sets.
Perhaps, you might already be aware ...
Your first concern is commutativity.
For example
Next is membership. For example
We might also have to consider referential relationship or indirection.
Symmetrical relationship is a loaded term. You should try to use the term non-commutative relationship when you actually mean so.
For example, these are symmetrical relationships
These are asymmetrical relationships:
There should not exist a single term you could use to abstract the relationships you might wish to describe.
Therefore, the following could be used to genericize a relationship from revealing if it is a parent-child or child-parent, plus or minus or divide, etc
I realise you might insist on being given some prepositional clauses. Therefore having the comprehension of the diversity of relationships, here are examples