RE: OWL "Sydney Syntax", structured english

Thanks for the previious response and pointers -- I'll look for them.  Let's get
this thread back on track.

Pat said:
>Nothing turns on the noun/verb distinction.

The noun/verb distinction prompted my original note.  The paper that Kaarel
cited statistically reviewed the linguistics of property names, and found that
verbs are involved with 65% of property names. In my responses to Kaarel's
plaintive assertion that ALL properties should be verb-based, I pointed out
   (1) how radical the shift to verbs for property names IS relative to
long-established practice within the industry;
   (2) how the W3 -- which introduced this practice -- hasn't provided much/any
justification for this new orientation;
   (3) how the W3/SWBP has no established best-practice guideline for property
names (or class names);
   (4) how verbs do not correlate to my common- or professional-sense about what
a resource property 'is';
   (5) how verbs actually represent a crucial, unexplored, dimension of an
rdf:Statement on par with rdf:node.

>From the view that property names are merely descriptors for arc-types used for
arc-instances within a DAG, sure, I agree with you that it matters little even
if numerics are used! but that seems contrary to
   (a) predictable interchange of documents between arms-length publishers and
consumers;
   (b) whether a "structured english syntax" can be formulated to facilate such
an exchange.

We're not operating at cross-purposes.  I care about making RDF a widely extant
reality -- I want to efficiently mine RDF resources created by others -- so the
more we can make DAGs easy to produce either directly or by predictable
transform, the faster we get there. The way towards that goal in my mind is for
the SWBP group to address these particular issues in a formal publication -- a
valuable follow-on to that about the relationship between RDF and
object-oriented design and programming.

Regards,
John

Received on Thursday, 30 November 2006 16:09:46 UTC