Re: D-entailment question in http://www.w3.org/TR/2014/PR-rdf11-mt-20140109/

Alex, thank you for your comments. Responses are added in-line below. 

On Jan 28, 2014, at 1:53 AM, Axel Polleres <axel.polleres@wu.ac.at> wrote:

> Dear RDF 1.1 WG,
> 
> First of all let me thank the WG for their efforts and work on gettin the new RDF1.1 spec to PR.
> My new affilation organization (WU Wien) has recently joined W3C and I have started looking 
> in a bit more detail into the new specs.
> 
> When looking over the definition of D-entailment, and also related comments on the list, I have some small question:
> 
> If I see it correctly, and that’s good news, D-entailment is no longer stacked on top of RDFS Entailment. I very much welcome this change.
> Next, I wonder only about one thing regarding the removal of datatype maps. As I understand the discussions, the intention here is 
> to simplify things, by assuming that known IRIs *identify* datatypes, i.e. there is a fixed interpretation for such known IRIs,

Yes.

> and that this fixed interpretation of a datatype IRI aaa is associated with a known lexical-to-value mapping L2V.

The fixed interpretation is assumed to be a datatype, and the datatype has an associated lexical-to-value mapping. 
The lexical-to-value mapping of a datatype D is L2V(D). (That is, L2V is a 'global' map from datatypes to their lexical-to-value mappings.) The argument D here is the actual datatype, not the datatype IRI. So if aaa is a datatype IRI, then it is interpreted to denote a datatype: D = I(aaa), which then has a lexical-to-value mapping L2V(D)  =  L2V(I(aaa)). 

> However, Section 7.1 seems to have no pointers to a *definition* of what is a *datatype* or a *lexical-to-value* actually is, nor give any information of how a custom datatype is defined,

That is given in Concepts section 5, which is linked from the third paragraph of this section: "RDF literals and datatypes are fully described in Section 5 of [RDF11-CONCEPTS]. "

> e.g. 
> 
> "For every other IRI aaa in D, I(aaa) is the datatype identified by aaa, and for every literal "sss"^^aaa, IL("sss"^^aaa) = L2V(I(aaa))(sss)”
> 
> seems to miss that L2V is the associated lexical-to-value mapping for I(aaa).

L2V assocates each datatype to its unique lexical-to-value map. In this equation. I(aaa) is the datatype denoted by the datatype IRI; L2V(I(aaa)) is the lexical-to-value map associated with this datatype; L2V(I(aaa))(sss) is the result of applying this lexical-to-value map to the string sss. (This is all unchanged since 2004, except that the basic mapping I here is described as an interpretation rather than as a "datatype map".) 

> Also, I find the remote definition of *identify* in section 4 ("when we wish to refer to such an externally defined naming relationship, we will use the word identify and its cognates.”)
> insufficient to give a proper definition to what a datatype is.

Indeed. This notion of identification applies to many kinds of entity and is not restricted to datatypes, so to give such a definition there would not be appropriate.

> I would kindly ask the group for two things:
> a) to add more explanatory text or pointers to other specs to make these definitions more self-contained.
> b) explain, even if only in an informal section, how custom datatypes should be defined (which several existing RDF datasets do)

Please check Section 5 of Concepts and see if this gives the information that you feel is required. (I would add that the definition of RDF datatype has not changed since the RDF 1.0 specification of 2004.) 

> If I understand this correctly, such informal addition as well as adding explaining text or references to other specs containing the resp. definitions 
> would not be a substantial change, and not affect PR status.

I hope that this reply gives you enough explanation. If you still feel that more explanatory text is necessary, please let me know and I will try to find a way to explain things more intuitively.

Pat

> best regards,
> Axel
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Prof. Dr. Axel Polleres
> Institute for Information Business, WU Vienna
> url: http://www.polleres.net/  twitter: @AxelPolleres
> 
> 
> 

------------------------------------------------------------
IHMC                                     (850)434 8903 home
40 South Alcaniz St.            (850)202 4416   office
Pensacola                            (850)202 4440   fax
FL 32502                              (850)291 0667   mobile (preferred)
phayes@ihmc.us       http://www.ihmc.us/users/phayes

Received on Wednesday, 29 January 2014 17:49:19 UTC