changes proposed in Semantics for ISSUE-159 (was Re: Proposed response to ISSUE-159)

Here are the unqualified and incorrectly qualified uses of the word
"interpretation" that I found in RDF Semantics, with proposed *additions* and
*segnahc/changes*.  [My comments are in brackets.]

I think that these are all editorial, so I *only* need Pat's approval.  :-)

peter






4. Notation and Terminology

The words denotes and refers to are used interchangeably as synonyms for the
relationship between an IRI or literal and what it refers to in a given
interpretation *as defined in this document*, itself called the referent or
denotation. IRI meanings may
also be determined by other constraints external to the RDF semantics; when
we wish to refer to such an externally defined naming relationship, we will
use the word identify and its cognates. For example, the fact that the IRI
http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal is widely used as the name of a
datatype described in the XML Schema document [XMLSCHEMA11-2] might be
described by saying that the IRI identifies that datatype. If an IRI
identifies something it may or may not refer to it in a given
interpretation, depending on how the semantics is specified. For example, an
IRI used as a graph name identifying a named graph in an RDF dataset may
refer to something different from the graph it identifies.


5. Simple Interpretations

This section defines the basic notions of *simple* interpretation and truth 
for RDF
graphs. All semantic extensions of any vocabulary or higher-level notation
encoded in RDF MUST conform to these minimal truth conditions. Other
semantic extensions may extend and add to these, but they MUST NOT modify or
negate them. For example, because *simple* interpretations are mappings which 
apply
to IRIs, a semantic extension cannot interpret different occurrences of a
single IRI differently.

The 2004 RDF 1.0 semantics defined *simple* interpretations relative to a 
vocabulary.

*Simple* Interpretations are required to interpret all names, and are therefore
infinite.

The denotation of a ground RDF graph in an *simple* interpretation I is then 
given by
the following rules, where the interpretation is also treated as a function
from expressions (names, triples and graphs) to elements of the universe and
truth values:

Semantic extensions may impose further constraints upon interpretation
mappings by requiring some IRIs to refer in particular ways. For example,
D-interpretations, described below, require some IRIs, understood as
identifying and referring to datatypes, to have a fixed 
*interpretation/denotation*.

5.1 Blank Nodes

Suppose I is an *simple* interpretation and A is a mapping from a set of blank 
nodes
to the universe IR of I.

Mappings from blank nodes to referents are not part of the definition of an
*simple* interpretation, since the truth condition refers only to some such 
mapping.
Blank nodes themselves differ from other nodes in not being assigned a
denotation by an *simple* interpretation, reflecting the intuition that they 
have no
'global' meaning.

For example, consider
the overlapping graphs and an *simple* interpretation I over the universe {Alice,
Bob, Monica, Ruth} with: I(ex:Alice)=Alice, I(ex:Bob)=Bob,
IEXT(I(ex:hasChild))={<Alice,Monica>,<Bob,Ruth> }

5.3 Simple Entailment

Following standard terminology, we say that I satisfies E when I(E)=true,
that E is *simply* satisfiable when an *simple* interpretation exists which 
satisfies it,
(otherwise unsatisfiable), and that a graph G simply entails a graph E when
every *simple* interpretation which satisfies G also satisfies E.

In later sections these notions will be adapted to other classes of
interpretations, but throughout this section 'entailment' should be
interpreted as meaning simple entailment.

5.4 Properties of simple entailment (Informative)

This does not hold for extended notions of interpretation. For example, a
graph containing an ill-typed literal is D-unsatisfiable.


7. Literals and datatypes

Datatypes are identified by IRIs. Interpretations will vary according to
which IRIs they recognize as denoting datatypes. We describe this using a
parameter D on *simple* interpretations. where D is the set of recognized datatype
IRIs.

In the 2004 RDF 1.0 specification, the semantics of datatypes referred to
datatype maps. The current treatment subsumes datatype maps into the
interpretation mapping on recognized IRIs.

7.1 D-interpretations

[Before RDF interpretations are defined.]
The *built-in RDF/special* datatype rdf:langString has no ill-typed literals. Any
syntactically legal literal with this type will denote a value in every *RDF
interpretation/D-interpretation where D includes rdf:langString*.

9. RDFS Interpretations

Classes are defined to be things of type rdfs:Class, and the set
of all classes in an *RDFS* interpretation will be called IC.

Other triples which must be true in all *rdfs-interpretations/RDFS
interpretations* include the following.


A. Entailment rules (Informative)

The semantics
described in this document applies to the generalization without change, so
that the notions of interpretation, satisfiability and entailment can be
used freely.

B. Finite interpretations (Informative)

To keep the exposition simple, the RDF semantics has been phrased in a way
which requires interpretations to be larger than absolutely necessary. For
example, all interpretations are required to interpret the whole IRI
vocabulary, and the universes of all D-interpretations *where D contains
xsd:string* must contain all possible strings and therefore be infinite.

Basically, it is only necessary for an interpretation structure to interpret
the names actually used in the graphs whose entailment is being considered,
and to consider interpretations whose universes are at most as big as the
number of names and blank nodes in the graphs. More formally, we can define
a pre-interpretation over a vocabulary V to be a structure I similar to a
simple interpretation but with a mapping only from V to its universe
IR. Then when determining whether G entails E, consider only
pre-interpretations over the finite vocabulary of names actually used in G
union E. The universe of such a pre-interpretation can be restricted to the
cardinality N+B+1, where N is the size of the vocabulary and B is the number
of blank nodes in the graphs. Any such pre-interpretation may be extended to
simple interpretations, all of which which will give the same truth values
for any triples in G or E. Satisfiability, entailment and so on can then be
defined with respect to these finite pre-interpretations, and shown to be
identical to the ideas defined in the body of the specification.

C. Proofs of some results (Informative)

The empty graph is true in all *simple* interpretations, so is entailed by any
graph.  If G contains a triple <a b c>, then any *simple* interpretation I with
IEXT(I(b))={ } makes G false; so the empty graph does not entail G. QED.

If a subgraph E' of G is an instance of E then G entails E' which entails E,
so G entails E. *NOw/Now* suppose G entails E, and consider the Herbrand
interpretation I of G defined as follows.

D.1 Reification

For example, the triple might be part of an ontology describing animals,
which could be satisfied by an interpretation in which the universe
contained only animals, and in which a reification of it was therefore
false.

D.2 RDF containers

However, these informal *interpretations/conditions* are not reflected in any 
formal RDF
entailments.

They may exclude interpretations of the collection vocabulary which violate
the convention that the subject of a 'linked' collection of two-triple items
of the form described above, ending with an item ending with rdf:nil,
denotes a totally ordered sequence whose members are the denotations of the
rdf:first values of the items, in the order got by tracing the rdf:rest
properties from the subject to rdf:nil. This permits sequences which contain
other sequences.

Received on Saturday, 12 October 2013 13:05:39 UTC