Some thoughts on "intended Semantic Structures" section 3.8 of RIF-FLD

I am trying to understand the section 3.8 on intended semantic structures. 
I am not a deep expert in logic, so what may be obvious and implied to 
experts is alas not obvious to me. (My goal is to develop a dialect 
handling Naf amongst other things).

I have two comments/questions...

1) Looking at the section 3.8 , I see the term "intended semantic 
multi-structure". It is said that RIF-BLD does not specify what these 
might be, and I am fine with that. However this section does not even 
define (explicitly) what the "purpose" of such structures might be, nor 
any criteria for knowing that you have selected the right set for a given 
purpose. (Could the set be entirely random, I ask myself?) Therefore I 
look to the Shoham87 reference, and I read about "preferred" 
interpretations. This gives a clear "purpose" to the relationship between 
alternative interpretations, and I guess that this is what is meant by 
intended semantic multistructure.

So is it correct to say that intended semantic multistructure  == 
preferred interpretation? If so, could that be made explicit? If not, then 
what is the "purpose"?

2) In the section 3.9 a definition for entailment is given, based upon the 
lattice of truth values. However in the reference (again Shoham87) there 
is no mention (as far as my non-expert eyes can see) of lattices of truth 
values, only preference relations between interpretations.  So I am not 
sure what the intended RIF-FLD relationship is between these two concepts.

Apologies if these are obvious.

regards


David Mott, PhD, C. Eng.
Technical Staff Member
Hursley Emerging Technology Services
IBM UK Ltd
Telephone: +44 (0) 1962 817182 or internal x247182
email: mottd@uk.ibm.com

emerging.hursley.ibm.com
Technical solutions to business problems that require innovation across 
IBM 






Unless stated otherwise above:
IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 
741598. 
Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU