RE: New BNB sample data available

Simon,

 

I grabbed both books from the library and neither one appears to define
or use the term "extension".

 

The passage you quote in Svenonius (2000) is explaining "Referential
Semantics" in comparison to "Category Semantics" and "Relational
Semantics". As you quoted, this category rejects the modeling of
"objects in the real world or concepts in a mentalistic world". The
other two, however,  do not reject such modeling. I would argue that RDF
is more like an amalgamation of Category and Relational Semantics. My
feeling is that mapping a Referential Semantics perspective to RDF/OWL
would be unnecessary and awkward.

 

Returning to the original discussion, the class being discussed is
Concept, with individual concepts being its "extension" (as per OWL).
For example, I can believe that "Tumor" is an individual in the class
extension of Concept. I have a harder time believing "Tumor" is a
document or set of documents.

 

Jeff

 

We are using extension in the same sense here; the set of things denoted
by

a term.

 

For background, see e.g.  the following references:

 

Chan et. al (1985)  is  a collection of source materials from Cutter

onwards.

 

Subject indexing refers to the application of a vocabulary, which may be

more or less well structured, to indicate the content or aboutness of

documents  (Chan et. al 1985, p. xiii).

 

Svenonius (2000) is a very readable text on the theoretical issues in

information organization.

 

 

Subject language terms differ referentially from words used in ordinary

language. The former do not refer to objects in the real world or
concepts

in a mentalistic world but to subjects. As a name of a subject, the term

Butterflies refers not to actual butterflies but rather to the set of
all

indexed documents about butterflies (Svenonius 2000, p. 130).

 

 

References:

 

Chan, Lois Mai, Phyllis A. Richmond, and Elaine Svenonius (1985).
"Preface".

In: Theory of subject analysis:

 

a sourcebook. Ed. by Lois Mai Chan, Phyllis A. Richmond, and Elaine

Svenonius. Libraries Unlimited.

 

ISBN: 0872874893.

 

Svenonius, Elaine (2000). The Intellectual Foundation of Information

Organization. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT

 

Press. ISBN: 0262194333. URL:

http://www.netlibrary.com/AccessProduct.aspx?ProductId=39954 .

 

 

Simon

 

 

 

From: Young,Jeff (OR) 
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2011 12:47 PM
To: 'Simon Spero'
Cc: Karen Coyle; open-bibliography@lists.okfn.org; public-lld
Subject: RE: New BNB sample data available

 

Simon,

 

We appear to be using the term "extension" in different ways. I assumed
you meant it in the OWL sense:

 

"Classes provide an abstraction mechanism for grouping resources with
similar characteristics. Like RDF classes, every OWL class is associated
with a set of individuals, called the class extension."

http://www.w3.org/TR/owl-ref/#Class

 

Do you have a reference I could check out for how the term is used
differently in KOS systems to indicate a set of documents instead?

 

Jeff

 

From: sesuncedu@gmail.com [mailto:sesuncedu@gmail.com] On Behalf Of
Simon Spero
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2011 12:30 PM
To: Young,Jeff (OR)
Cc: Karen Coyle; open-bibliography@lists.okfn.org; public-lld
Subject: Re: New BNB sample data available

 

On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 11:39 AM, Young,Jeff (OR) <jyoung@oclc.org>
wrote:

	Simon,

	 

	I'm confused by your statement "the Concepts have the same
extension".

 

The extension of a KOS Concept is the set of all documents that the
Concept is about. 

 

Simon