- From: Graham Klyne <Graham.Klyne@Baltimore.com>
- Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2001 21:48:00 +0100
- To: Brian McBride <bwm@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
- Cc: rdf core <w3c-rdfcore-wg@w3.org>
At 12:18 PM 6/16/01 +0100, Brian McBride wrote:
>Hi Graham,
>
>Graham Klyne wrote:
>[...]
> > I think that, to serve its intended purpose, that "reification" will need
>
>Could you please clarify what the intended purpose is. M&S suggests that
>the purpose is representing provenance information e.g. ralph said "the sky
>is blue".
That (and other similar things), without asserting the statement whose
provenance is provided.
But also, it has been suggested (by TimBL and others) that reification can
be a basis for defining extensions to the basic RDF semantics, such as
extension to full FOL. Based on discussions in RDF-logic, I understand
this can only work if these new extensions have clear syntax extensions
w.r.t. the RDF core. Which I think means that reification, if it is to be
used as a "hook" for such extensions, must itself have a distinguished
place in the syntax of RDF.
Otherwise, I think that any of these "extensions" to RDF must be completely
different languages that happen to have a passing resemblance with RDF
(i.e. we cannot be sure that expressions conforming to the core RDF syntax
still have the same meaning).
...
All this is predicated on the idea that reification is retained in
approximately its current form. It may be that this group decides that a
different approach is called for (there have been numerous suggestions that
there are more elegant ways to achieve the same ends).
In any case, I think the RDF core should try to anticipate some ways in
which richer semantics can be introduced.
#g
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Graham Klyne Baltimore Technologies
Strategic Research Content Security Group
<Graham.Klyne@Baltimore.com> <http://www.mimesweeper.com>
<http://www.baltimore.com>
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Received on Saturday, 16 June 2001 16:55:16 UTC