Re: modelling questions in a domain of language

On Apr 20, 2007, at 5:16 PM, Kim, Soonho (KCEW) wrote:
> Dear all;
>
> How are you?
> I have a quick question about modelling an ontology.
> I am doing a modelling about language and language code such as  
> ISO639-1 and ISO639-2.
> First, I created a class called "language".
> I have two question on that.
> 1) Do I create another class called "language code" and create  
> object property called "has Code"  between both classes? or Do I  
> create  two data type property called "hasISO639-1code" and  
> "hasISO639-1code"?
>
> Could you tell me your opinion?
It depends. If there are a fixed set of codes, the property way could  
be shorter and more readable, though even there I'd go with a more  
generic datatype property and use datatypes to distinguish the code  
ets. Then if you need to distinguish things with must have an  
ISO639-1 code or only an ISO639-2 code you could define the  
appropriate classes easily.

If you need to model more features of the code types, then an  
intervening object (rather than directly to the data which represents  
the code) is useful. E.g. if you need to model *when* an object had  
such and such a code, an intermediate object which could have the  
"inEffectDuring" property.

> 2) I would like to put multilingual names in each language(i.e.  
> English in English, Inglésin Spanish, Anglais in French. and so  
> on). Then, how do I model this kind of multilingual information? I  
> have two options: One is using datatype property called  
> "hasEnglishName"
Boo.
> and the other is <rdfs:label xml:lang ="en">English</rdfs:label>.  
> Is there anyone who has the same experience then could tell me  
> which one is better?
The latter by far. Swoop, for example, will allow you to select which  
language to render your classes and properties and individuals in  
using the lang tag of rdfs:labels. The FLA task computing environment  
also did this to localize their interface.

In other words, you stand a better chance of tools making use of your  
localization if you use rdfs:label.

Cheers,
Bijan.

Received on Friday, 20 April 2007 16:30:48 UTC