Re: NEW issue 6 - defining semantic relationships

Hi Alistair,

> I agree, I think having a property set like ...
> 
> <soks:semanticRelation>
>  ^
>  |
> <thes:broader>
>  ^                        ^                           ^
>  |                        |                           |
> <thes:broaderGeneric>    <thes:broaderInstantive>    <thes:broaderPartOf>
> 
> ... would be good for thesaurus-specific applications.  However, here is
> where we start treading on the toes of RDF RDFS and OWL.  The property
> <thes:broaderGeneric> would be semantically equivalent to <rdfs:subClassOf>,
> and the property <thes:broaderInstantive> would be semantically equivalent
> to <rdf:type>.  How do we handle this kind of overlap? 

I'm not sure there is a problem here. If BG and BI are truly equivalent to 
rdfs:subClassOf and rdf:type then just define them as equivalent using 
either owl:equivalentProperty or a pair of rdfs:subPropertyOf relations. 
That's the beauty of RDF - open world, multiple inheritance, cycles allowed.

Then a thesaurus processor could take an RDFS file and realise, for 
example, that an rdfs:subClassOf relation implies thes:broader.

Dave

Received on Tuesday, 18 November 2003 10:56:22 UTC