What about sub property chains for datatype properties?

Hi!

It just stroke me that there seem to be only Sub/Object/PropertyChains in
the current OWL-1.1 draft [1]. Does anyone know if there is a problem with
also having sub property chains of the form

  SubDataPropertyOf( 
      SubDataPropertyChain(R1 ... Rn-1 Dn) 
      D )

where Dn and D are DataPropertyS (having compatible datatypes as their
ranges), while R1 ... Rn-1 are ObjectPropertyS?

With such a SubDataPropertyChain, one could for instance translate rules
like:

  ?x hasFather ?y AND ?y hasFamilyName ?fn 
  ==> ?x hasFamilyName ?fn

with ?fn being an xsd:string, into an equivalent OWL axiom 

  SubDataPropertyOf(
      SubDataPropertyChain(hasFather hasFamilyName)
      hasFamilyName )

In this case, the super property whould equal the final chain property (both
'hasFamilyName').

An example for a more general rule type (the analogon of the 'uncle' rule)
would be:

  ?g containsUser ?u AND ?u hasUserID ?i
  ==> ?g containsUserWithID ?i

where ?g would stand for some user group. Here, the DataPropertyS
'hasUserID' and 'containsUserWithID' differ from each other, because they
are intended to have a different meaning.

Any ideas, if this feature has a chance to enter the family of OWL-1.1 (or
1.2 :)) axioms? Or did I overlook some fundamental issue here?

Cheers,
Michael

[1] OWL-1.1 Semantics
    http://www.webont.org/owl/1.1/semantics.html#2

--
Dipl.-Inform. Michael Schneider
FZI Forschungszentrum Informatik Karlsruhe
Abtl. Information Process Engineering (IPE)
Tel  : +49-721-9654-726
Fax  : +49-721-9654-727
Email: Michael.Schneider@fzi.de
Web  : http://www.fzi.de/ipe/eng/mitarbeiter.php?id=555

FZI Forschungszentrum Informatik an der Universität Karlsruhe
Haid-und-Neu-Str. 10-14, D-76131 Karlsruhe
Tel.: +49-721-9654-0, Fax: +49-721-9654-959
Stiftung des bürgerlichen Rechts
Az: 14-0563.1 Regierungspräsidium Karlsruhe
Vorstand: Rüdiger Dillmann, Michael Flor, Jivka Ovtcharova, Rudi Studer
Vorsitzender des Kuratoriums: Ministerialdirigent Günther Leßnerkraus

Received on Tuesday, 2 October 2007 12:26:41 UTC