Re: Names for top and bottom properties

On Apr 28, 2008, at 11:07 AM, Ian Horrocks wrote:

> Last week it was agreed in principle that we should add these  
> properties, but we need to find suitable names for them.  
> Suggestions in an email please!
>
> Ian



Here's some responses from a query I sent out.

Jonathan's tickle my fancy the most.
UR or universallyRelatedTo works too. Not sure what the bottom equiv  
for this is. NR? for notRelatedTo?

I can see the merit of the proposal to leave them ungrammatical as a  
warning, as Chris suggests, though that wouldn't be my preference.

-Alan


 From Jonathan Rees:

> Just thinking...
>
> Start with any universal unary predicate and put "co" in the front.
>
> E.g. if everything exists (sorry, I don't know whether it does),  
> then A coexistsWith Y
>
> Along the same lines:
>
> A isThingWith B
>
> -Jonathan

Responding, Chris Mungall

> This to me implies some kind of temporal overlap; I guess OWL would  
> want to try and be more neutral here.
>
> E.g.
>
> 	assassinationOfJFK UR cambrianExplosion
>
> is presumably OK w.r.t the intended semantics of UR (since  
> 'happens_after' would be an owl:subPropertyOf of this)
>
> thingProperty is horrible; topProperty is at least consistent with  
> DL terminology (and probably with 'bottomProperty', for which I  
> can't think of a remotely sensible name). Ah, but I guess owl uses  
> thing/nothing rather than top/bottom.
>
> But I think there is an asymmetry here contraindicating use of the  
> same terminology. ABox is to TBox as RBox is to...? The actual  
> relation-instances (facts in owl) as such go in the ABox.
>
> If it's necessary for the formalism to name these properties, then  
> I'm happy with UniversalProperty or TopProperty as these names give  
> a clue that these are mathematical abstractions and need not  
> necessarily have ontological correlates. I don't like relatedTo for  
> this reason - colloquially at least, many things are unrelated.
>
> Do they need named at all? Can they not just exist in the abstract  
> syntax in the spec? I guess the use case here is that some  
> reasoners may infer that a relation declared in an RBox use role  
> chains cannot possibly exist, and would place it as a subProperty  
> of NothingProperty. Hmm.


Jonathan, again:


> Personally I prefer names for which the naive reading is both  
> grammatical and correct. Thus it is best for "properties" if the  
> name is something that you can put a singular noun phrase before  
> and after.
>
> I'm reminded of "The flowers that bloom in the spring / Have  
> nothing to do with the case".
>
> A hasSomethingOrNothingToDoWith B
>
> A doesOrDoesNotRelateTo B
>
> by construction neither of these can be false (assuming excluded  
> middle)... then the bottom would have to be
>
> A doesAndDoesNotRelateTo B
>
> Very sorry... I'll keep working on it...
> -Jonathan

Received on Tuesday, 29 April 2008 22:25:48 UTC