expectations of vocabulary

RDF solves the mime type explosion problem. Everything can be  
expressed in one of the RDF mime types (I'll use N3 here cause it's  
easier to write). But has the mime type explosion problem just been  
shifted?

Below is an example that should help illustrate the problem.

Example
-------

Imagine I translate the following atom

<entry>
    ...
    <link rel="categories" href="/cats"/>
    ...
</entry>

into the following N3

[] a :Entry;
   iana:categories </cats> .

Where I have defined

@prefix iana: <http://www.iana.org/assignments/relation/> .
@prefix rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .
@prefix owl: <http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#> .

iana:categories a owl:DatatypePropery;
                 rdfs:domain :FeedOrEntry;
                 rdfs:range :CategoryList .


The N3 representation of </cats> could be something like

<> a :CategoryList;
    :category [ :scheme <http://eg.com/cats/>;
                :term "dog" ];
    :category [ :scheme <http://eg.com/cats/>;
                :term "house" ].




Question
--------

What guarantee do I have that  the representation returned is not

<> a :McDonaldCategoryList;
    :McCategory [ :McScheme <http://eg.com/cats/>;
                :McTerm "dog" ];
    :McCategory [ :McScheme <http://eg.com/cats/>;
                :McTerm "house" ].

where the above terms are all defined somewhere as being owl:sameAs  
the ones I was expecting to receive?


Solution?
--------

Well perhaps one could argue that :categories is a relation that  
creates an expectation of things being represented in a certain way.  
But since we are dealing with semantics, that seems a little dodgy.

Perhaps it is just expectations and conventions that we use the same  
vocabulary that will solve this problem. After all that is just what  
happens in normal language learning
(See perhaps Devid Lewis's book Convention)

Henry


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Received on Friday, 21 July 2006 15:21:28 UTC