Re: RDF* semantics

Hi Kingsley,

On Mon, 2019-08-05 at 13:52 -0400, Kingsley Idehen wrote:
> [...]
> Under what circumstances in the real-world would the condition you model
> arise i.e., propositions that don't manifest as part of documentation?

For instance, we my want to capture that Alice told us that Bob's age is
23, even if we don't have a document from Alice with this
statement/claim regarding Bob's age.

Another example: we may want to capture that we do not believe that
Bob's age is 23, which is independent of whether there exist a document
making the claim about Bob's age or not.

> All sentences/statements are inscribed to documents that have provenance
> oriented properties such as date, time, author etc..
> 
> What I am trying to articulate here is that its a combination of the
> sentence and document (in which they are inscribed) that brings
> authority (or lack thereof) to a proposition represented as an RDF
> sentence/statement.
> 
> The triple:
> 
> @prefix : <#> .
> 
> :bob foaf:age "23"^^xsd:integer . 
> 
> Exists in a document identified by <> , so we a missing the following part
> of reality (as I understand it):
> 
> @prefix : <#> . 
> 
> <> a foaf:Document .
> <> :creator :i .
> <> :createdOn "2019-08-05"^^xsd:date . 
> <> foaf:primaryTopic :bob. 
> 
> :bob foaf:age "23"^^xsd:integer . 
> 
> 
> Thus, it's the authoritative weight given to <>, by whoever, under whatever
> situation and circumstance, that leads to acceptance or rejection of the
> claims outlined e.g., those about the foaf:age of the entity identified
> by :bob .

I am not questioning that. Note, however, that your document is not
making a statement/claim about the claim regarding Bob's age (other than
asserting it, of course). The purpose of RDF*, and of RDF reification,
is to allow you to do so (within your document or within another of your
documents).

Best,
Olaf

> 
> If we get the world we a modeling for clear, other bits of the problem
> will become clearer.
> 
> Conclusion:
> 
> In my opinion, we need a complete example that's relatable to the world
> that we are describing using RDF sentences :)
>

Received on Tuesday, 6 August 2019 15:13:29 UTC