So REPLACE can only be used when you use an alias with it?

That's the only normal usage, though the 3Literati have created some other use cases, but I don't remember what they are. And they're pretty advanced anyway.

Ah. I'll just try to get a basic X+ map done for now.

*has put his NaNo in an indefinite coma so that he can get back to working on this*

So what would I do if I had the label ABSTRACT for all of an aspect, but I want to give one of the classes that is within the aspect the label of ALLEGORY and not ABSTRACT?

Labels define how an attribute affects its parent attribute in conjunction with its sibling attributes. They don't cascade or inherit.

So if you have an aspect with CONCRETE, and then you have an element inside with ABSTRACT, you have an element abstractly describing a concrete aspect.

Does that help?

Thanks, that does help.

*returns with another question* What is implied when someone doesn't use the labels ABSTRACT, ALLEGORY, or CONCRETE to define an essence?

I do not think anything is implied when you do not use one of the things. It would be like using X basic rather than X+, nothing would be implied by that. Does that help?

Somewhat. I think what is giving me problems is that when I did X basic I used ALLEGORY by default -- so I'm having a hard time distinguishing ALLEGORY from... whatever nothing is.

Maybe nothing means any of them. I know I hardly ever specify any of them, and I never use ALLEGORY. I only connect the content of the map in essence. I still wonder if essence maps can be called lists of metaphors. I probably have a completely different category, or a type of ABSTRACT, that I usually use.

Oooh... that I could do.

Thanks for the help.

It is up to reader discretion entirely to decide which one is most intuitive. The reason you would use them is to specify it if you don't think what you were meaning would be intuitive. See?

That makes complete sense. Thanks, Juliet!

You're welcome! I'm glad it made sense, believe me....