Proposal for use of labels in Manchester Syntax ISSUE-146, ACTION-247

Here is how I propose handling labels in Manchester Syntax.

Assume we augment the syntax with:

labels :: 'Labels:' labelAnnotationProperties [ '@' labelLangPattern ]
labelAnnotationProperties ::= { labelAnnotationPropertyIRI }
labelAnnotationPropertyIRI ::= annotationPropertyIRI
labelLangPattern ::= a valid value for the facet langPattern

quotedlabel := 'a finite sequence of characters in which ' (U+27) and
\ (U+5C) occur only in pairs of the form \' (U+27, U+5C) and \\ (U+22,
U+22), enclosed in a pair of ' (U+27) characters'

Then the frame productions are modified like this one:

individual ::= individualIRI | nodeID | quotedLabel

That there is a choice of labels is due to a request by Alan Rector.
The motivation for a choice of language should be clear.

Potential associations between labels and IRIs (the association
LabelToIRI) are found in annotations of frames whose
annotationProperty are from the list of
labelAnnotationProperties and whose identifier is an IRI(i.e. not a
quotedLabel). Associations for each document are found in that
document as well as in any ontology it imports, based on the "Labels:"
statement the given document. Thus there is a distinct LabelToIRI
association used for parsing each document.

Labels with highest precedence are associated with IRIs by being added
to LabelToIRI. The order of precedence is:

Associations made within the ontology document have precedence over
associations made in the imports closure.

Among associations selected by the above, associations of labels that
are targets of annotation properties earlier in the
labelAnnotationProperties list take precedence over later ones.

Among associations selected by the above, If labelLangPattern is
present, associations of language tagged literals to IRIs take
precedence over association of plain literals.

A new production, quotedLabel is introduced, a string surrounded by
single quotes. quotedLabel becomes an alternative to IRI and (in the
case of individuals) nodeID.

In the transformation from Manchester to Functional Syntax,
quotedLabels are replaced by their mapped-to IRIs. In the case that
LabelToIRI doesn't have an association for a quotedLabel, or has 2
different ones, the document is rejected as having a syntax error.

Received on Tuesday, 3 February 2009 20:15:41 UTC