Relating things based on other relationships?

Authoring Inform 7
1

I’m trying to set up a conditional relationship based on the existence of another relationship the objects already share. This example may seem unnecessary out of context, but I’m more interested in how (if possible) to achieve the goal of making the stowed item inside the item that is stowing it without resorting to explicitly stating both relations in the code. Simply because the apple is stowed by the basket, ideally I’d like a way to make it also be in the basket without any additional wording.

Stow relates one thing to one thing. The verb to stow (it stows, they stow, it stowed, it is stowed) implies the stow relation.

Definition: a thing is related to a thing by reversed containment if it is stowed by it.
[I also tried simply "Definition: a thing is in a thing if it is stowed by it" but this was no better]

The kitchen is a room.

The player is in the kitchen.

The basket is in the kitchen. An apple is stowed by the basket.
2

You can define a new relation in terms of an existing relation (see 13.12), but you can’t redefine an existing relation like containment.

3

Hm… perhaps a relationship is the wrong thing to do then? I never know what question to ask or topic name to give, because if I knew that, I’d likely have no question!

Let me ask it this way: is there a way to make an object that is related to another object gain another relationship to said object without explicitly stating it as such on a case by case basis? I don’t want to have to use a phrase like this:

The apple is in the basket, stowed by the basket.

or (yuck) this:

When play begins:
	repeat with x running through things:
		if x is stowed by a thing (called y):
			now x is in y;
			
First every turn:
	repeat with x running through things:
		if x is stowed by a thing (called y):
			now x is in y;

Is there some other code that can be placed that will simply make “apple is stowed by the basket” also “implicitly” make the apple be contained by the basket?

4

It seems that you’re just defining a new synonym for an existing relationship. You don’t need to make a new relation for that, just a new verb. And if for some hacky reason you do want two truly identical relations, just define your new one in terms of the old one rather than the other way around.