RDF and denotation

Some extracts from 'RDF Semantics' [1] ...

---
A 'name' is a URI reference or a literal.

A set of names is referred to as a 'vocabulary'. The vocabulary of a graph
is the set of names which occur as the subject, predicate or object of any
triple in the graph.

The semantics treats all RDF names as expressions which *denote*. The things
denoted are called 'resources', following [RFC 2396], but no assumptions are
made here about the nature of resources; 'resource' is treated here as
synonymous with 'entity', i.e. as a generic term for anything in the
universe of discourse.

... a 'sentence' makes a claim about the world: it is another way of saying
that the world is, in fact, so arranged as to be an 'interpretation' which
makes the sentence true.

... an interpretation provides just enough information about a possible way
the world might be ... in order to fix the truth-value (true or false) of
any ground RDF triple. *It does this by specifying for each URI reference,
what it is supposed to be a name of;*

All interpretations will be relative to a set of names, called the
'vocabulary' of the interpretation; so that one should speak, strictly, of
an 'interpretation of an RDF vocabulary', rather than of RDF itself. *Some
interpretations may assign special meanings to the symbols in a particular
vocabulary.*
---

... my mind is bending ...


[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-mt/

---
Alistair Miles
Research Associate
CCLRC - Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Building R1 Room 1.60
Fermi Avenue
Chilton
Didcot
Oxfordshire OX11 0QX
United Kingdom
Email:        a.j.miles@rl.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1235 445440

Received on Thursday, 30 September 2004 12:50:38 UTC