use of multi-valued rdf:reifies removes ability to annotate individual triple-patterns

A shortcoming of using multi-valued rdf:reifies is that you lose the ability to add statements about the individual triple-terms. I have tried illustrating this with the following simple examples.

Example 1: using multi-valued rdf:reifies
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:e rdf:reifies <<( :s1 :p1 :o1 )>>, <<( :s2 :p2 :o2 )>> ; :source :src1 ; :year 2023 .
:f rdf:reifies <<( :s1 :p1 :o1 )>>, <<( :s3 :p3 :o3 )>> ; :source :src2 ; :year 2024 .

What if we want to indicate that the <<(: s1 :p1 :o1 )>> triple-term in :e has a different :month annotation than the one in :f? The following does not help because we cannot specify that the one in :e is associated with :g and the one in :f is associated with :h.

:g rdf:reifies <<( :s1 :p1 :o1 )>> ; :month 5 .
:h rdf:reifies <<( :s1 :p1 :o1 )>> ; :month  12 .

Example 2: using single-valued rdf:reifies, along with rdfs:member (or some similar) property
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:e1 rdf:reifies <<( :s1 :p1 :o1 )>> .
:e2 rdf:reifies <<( :s2 :p2 :o2 )>> .
:e rdfs:member :e1, :e2 ; :source :src1 ; :year 2023 .

:f1 rdf:reifies <<( :s1 :p1 :o1 )>> .
:f2 rdf:reifies <<( :s2 :p2 :o2 )>> .
:f rdfs:member :f1, :f2 ; :source :src2 ; :year 2024 .

This is a multi-level structure that, although more verbose, allows annotations at each level. So, the following achieves the objective.

:e1 :month 5 .
:f1 :month 12 .

The second approach – using single-valued rdf:reifies and rdfs:member –  allows one to use a uniform way to create multi-level structures (e.g., a document with levels: chapter -> section-> paragraph -> sentence).

Thanks,
Souri.

Received on Sunday, 14 April 2024 18:37:29 UTC