The value element

Value elements allow you to associate alternative names to given column values. For example consider this example from geo.cphrase: 

    <column id="name" type="text" lex="name,names,named,called">
        <value val="New York" lex="the big apple,empire city"/>
   ...
This allows us to ask questions like "population of the big apple" and have C-Phrase map that to the database value 'New York'.

Here is the DTD defining value elements: 

<!ATTLIST value
          val CDATA #REQUIRED
          lex CDATA #REQUIRED
          description CDATA #IMPLIED>>

val gives the literal value of the column.

lex is the comma separated phrases associated with the value.