I agree that there are many ways to approach semantics. While I'm not sure I would characterize model-theoretic semantics as more or less abstract than other approaches, I do fear that a model-theoretic semantics will be of little help to the implementors of RIF translators and associated rule engines. Looking at other W3C formal semantic specifications for guidance, I find http://www.w3.org/TR/xquery-semantics/ to be a good approach. Formal XQuery semantics are specified using RULES. Why can't we specify RIF semantics using rules? We could even write those rules using RIF. Francois Bry wrote: >Peter F. Patel-Schneider wrote: > > >>From: Francois Bry <bry@ifi.lmu.de> >>Subject: "Semantics" vs. "No Semantics" >>Date: Mon, 08 May 2006 10:13:18 +0200 >> >> >> >> >>>Dear All, >>> >>>Thinking over the weekend of the "Semantics" vs. "No Semantics" issue >>>which arises again and again, I would like to submit a few simple views: >>> >>>1. The RIF needs a specification of its meaning, e.g. how conjunctions >>>are expressed in RIF. No interchange language can be usfeull if its >>>meaning is not specified in some way. >>> >>>2. This "specification of meaning" can be very abstract (= high level), >>>and possibly will have to be so. >>> >>> >>> >>I don't understand what it means for a "specification of meaning" to be >>very abstract. Perhaps you could give examples of such specifications. >> >>[...] >> >> >> >> >What I mean is that one does not necessarily wants to specify a model >theory or a proof clculus for a logic. Specifying the logical >connectives in an unambigous manner is already a semantics, a more >abstract one than a model theory. >François > > > > > >Received on Monday, 8 May 2006 21:14:37 GMT
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