- From: Boris Motik <boris.motik@comlab.ox.ac.uk>
- Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2008 09:12:38 +0100
- To: "'Christine Golbreich'" <cgolbrei@gmail.com>
- Cc: "'Kaarel Kaljurand'" <kaljurand@gmail.com>, <public-owl-wg@w3.org>
Hello Christine, Thanks for this analysis/advice -- I really appreciate it! I still need to think a bit and take all the advice in, but I'll try to fix the examples in one way or the other. Regards, Boris > -----Original Message----- > From: Christine Golbreich [mailto:cgolbrei@gmail.com] > Sent: 16 September 2008 09:07 > To: Boris Motik > Cc: Kaarel Kaljurand; public-owl-wg@w3.org > Subject: Re: English examples in the OWL 2 syntax specification > > Hi Boris > > First of all, including these examples in the spec was really a good > idea.The irregularities (I had noticed it a while ago when looking at > the spec for making the Requirements consistent with it) do not seem > so much important, compared to the benefit of having such examples > in the spec. > > If you decide finally to fix it, some of them may be easily > uniformized, for example for ClassAssertions, DisjointClasses, > FunctionalProperty, PropertyAssertion etc. : > > DisjointClasses( a:Boy a:Girl ): Nothing can be both a boy and a > girl. -> No individual is both a boy and a girl > DisjointClasses( a:Man a:Woman ) No object can be both a man and a > woman. ->No individual is both a man and a woman. > > FunctionalProperty( a:hasFather ) Each person can have at most one > father. -> Each individual has at most one father > FunctionalProperty( a:hasName ) Each object can have at most one > name.-> Each object has at most one name. > > etc. > > > I'd like to hear from others about what kind of approach to adopt > > In general, I would be inclined to favor "a more OWL-centric one" > rather than a natural language (or ACE) explanation > because: > - people may certainly be able to translate a more OWL-centric into > natural-language by themselves, since the given examples are really > simple common sense examples. > - Users often prefer a more precise explanation, closer to OWL syntax > rather than natural language which is ambiguous (Perhaps quite > surprisingly enough, but they even often preferred the DL syntax > displayed in Protégé than the Manchester syntax in P4!) > - The examples in the OWL Web Ontology Language Reference were in > general rather "OWL-centric " and it was quite used and appreciated. > > In fact, the question of the approach may have more importance only > for some of the less obvious new features, e.g. asymmetry. I woud say > that we may be flexible, and add for these few specific cases a more > informal sentence in NL, if needed. > > In contrast, I found more embarrassing the following in the Syntax > about the examples: > in most cases the example that illustrates a primitive/axiom is given > together with another (or a set of other) axiom(s) introduced by > "Consider the ontology consisting of the following axiom". Very often, > this other axiom(s), which appears first and is highlighted by its > position at the beginning of the example, a special style, font and > tab, is NOT the axiom corresponding to the presented construct! > > e.g., for DataSomeValuesFrom in 8.4.1 Existential Quantification, the > highlighted axiom that we see first is: PropertyAssertion( a:hasAge > a:Meg "17"^^xsd:integer while the restriction concerned by the syntax > of DataSomeValuesFrom only appears after, in small, within the > explanation. This is a (trivial) example of the doc, but for those > which are longer or more complex, this may be quite disturbing or > confusing for some non advised readers, making it more difficult for > them to catch the right illustrative axiom among the other ones. > > So if you finally decide to touch the examples, this might perhaps be > rectified as well. What about improving the presentation by simply > changing the order/place of the axioms and/or the style (for example > another font, in bold or any else way)? > > Christine > > 2008/9/14 Boris Motik <boris.motik@comlab.ox.ac.uk>: > > > > (I redirected this discussion to public-owl-wg, because I feel this is a more appropriate list.) > > > > Hello, > > > > Thanks a lot for this analysis -- it is certainly important to make the examples as consistent as > possible. > > > > Before I change the examples, though, I believe we need to decide on the purpose of the English > examples. I included them into the > > spec because I felt that many readers could benefit from an intuitive explanation what a particular > axiom means. At first, I tried > > not to use the actual OWL elements in the example; thus, I would explain an axiom > > > > SubClassOf( a:Child a:Person ) > > > > with the sentence "Children are people". But then, some people complained about such paraphrasing > of the axioms: they felt that this > > was imprecise. Instead, they thought we should paraphrase this axiom as "Each instance of a:Child > is an instance of a:Person as > > well" -- that is, to use a more modeling-centric view. I updated much of the spec; however, I did > not know myself what to do in many > > cases. Thus, it is highly likely that the examples are inconsistent. > > > > Now the question is really what approach to adopt. I still believe that having some kind of English > explanation would be very > > useful. I'd like to hear from others about what kind of approach to adopt there -- a more natural- > language one or a more OWL-centric > > one. > > > > Thanks again -- I find this analysis really useful. > > > > Regards, > > > > Boris > > > >> -----Original Message----- > >> From: public-owl-dev-request@w3.org [mailto:public-owl-dev-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Kaarel > >> Kaljurand > >> Sent: 14 September 2008 20:26 > >> To: public-owl-dev@w3.org > >> Subject: English examples in the OWL 2 syntax specification > >> > >> > >> Hi, > >> > >> I extracted all the examples from the OWL 2 Syntax specification (a > >> revision from > >> the end of August) to see how the specification expresses the OWL > >> axioms in English. > >> After sorting the examples by the axioms, many irregularities in the > >> English expressions > >> were revealed. I think most of the irregularities are unintended/unwanted. > >> > >> See the report: > >> > >> http://www.cl.uzh.ch/kalju/ontologies/OWL_spec/owl_spec_examples.html > >> > >> -- > >> kaarel > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > Christine
Received on Tuesday, 16 September 2008 08:14:19 UTC