Re: Consolidating triple/edges

Just to concur 100% with Olaf's interpretation of Andy's email.

On 20/12/2023 10:26, Olaf Hartig wrote:
> On Tue, 2023-12-19 at 16:39 -0800, Gregg Kellogg wrote:
>>> On Dec 18, 2023, at 12:47 PM, Andy Seaborne <andy@apache.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> [...]
>>>
>>> So we have:
>>>
>>> Occurrence:
>>>    << :s :p :o >>
>>>    <<| N | :s :p :o >>
>>>
>>> Triple term:
>>>   <<( :s :p :o )>>
>> To be clear, a Triple term would be a type, while an occurrence is a
>> token?
> That's my reading as well. However, maybe someone with a more intimate
> understanding of the subtleties* of the notions of a token and an
> occurrence should look at this question.
>
> *https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/types-tokens/#Occ

>
>> Are these fundamental in the abstract syntax? Or is the token
>> considered syntactic sugar for something like [] rdfx:occurrenceOf
>> <<( :s :p :o >>?
> When I read Andy's email, I was assuming the latter, and that's also
> what my immediate reaction would be, now that you ask this question
> explicitly.
>
> The options that I can currently think of to make tokens/occurrences an
> explicit concept in the abstract syntax, would mean that we have to add
> another new type of term or introduce some additional mathematical
> structure that the notion of an RDF graph would have to be accompanied
> with. I don't think these are very attractive options. Yet, if it
> appears that there is a use for treating tokens/occurrences in a
> special way in SPARQL (e.g., dedicated operators or build-in
> functions), then we may have to capture them explicitly in some way
> (but I don't see a need for that at the moment).
>
>> Can a term contain an occurrence, or visa-versa? E.g. <<( << :s :p :o
>>>> :o1 :o2 )>> or << <<( :s :p :o )>> :o1 :o2 >>?
> The latter is probably not particularly controversial, in particular if
> we understand expressions of the form
>
>    << :s :p :o >>
>
> as syntactic sugar as suggested in Andy's email. Then, the shorthand
>
>    << <<( :s :p :o )>> :o1 :o2 >>
>
> expands to
>
>    [] rdfx:occurrenceOf <<( <<( :s :p :o )>> :o1 :o2 )>> .
>
> (plus, the blank node in the subject of this triple would then also be
> in the subject / the object of the triple in which the shorthand is
> used).
>
> Regarding the former, i.e.,
>
>    <<( << :s :p :o >> :o1 :o2 )>>
>
> perhaps this can also be considered (and, thus, defined) as a shorthand
> notation for
>
>    <<( _:b :o1 :o2 )>>
>
> together with the addition of
>
>    _:b rdfx:occurrenceOf <<( :s :p :o )>> .
>
> into the same graph in which the shorthand is used as subject or object
> of a triple. (Note that _:b is meant to be a fresh blank node
> identifier that is not yet used in the document in which these things
> are written).
>
>> Would N-Triples contain both variations, or just the triple term?
> I can see how supporting both variations in N-Triples maybe appreciated
> for some use cases, but it may also be confusing because it would
> diverge from the current principle that every line in an N-Triples file
> is a serialization of a single triple only.
>
> (Note that my assumption here is, again, that an expression of the form
>
>    << :s :p :o >>
>
> is really just syntactic sugar.)
>
>> And, to James’s point, can you say << :s :p :o >> a <<( :s1 :p1 :o1
>> )>>; if so, would this be the same as rdfx:occurrenceOf?
> Well, by resolving the syntactic sugar as suggested in Andy's email,
> this would expand to
>
>    _:b rdfx:occurrenceOf <<( :s :p :o )>> .
>    _:b rdf:type <<( :s1 :p1 :o1 )>> .
>
> where, again, _:b is a fresh blank node identifier. So, the predicate
> "a" (or, rdf:type) in James' triple is not necessarily the same as rdfx
> :occurrenceOf.
>
>>> Annotation:
>>>   :s :p :o {| :p :z |}
>>>   :s :p :o {| N | :p :z |}
>>> (the last one is fiddly in the grammar because simply writing in
>>> ABNF is ambiguous for some parsers)
>> Presumably, an annotation is on an occurrence and not on a triple
>> term/type?
> I assume that's what Andy is suggesting here.
>
> Best,
> Olaf
>
>
>> Gregg
>>>   
>>>    Andy
>>>
>>