Action subtypes and indirect objects

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Hi,

I see that we have many disparate properties on Action subtypes, which
seem a bit arbitrary to me.

It might help to apply the grammatical concepts of direct object and
indirect object to actions. The plain "object" we have is the direct
object, but there is no indirect object on schema:Action. Rather, we
have specialized actions with dedicated properties to represent the
indirect action, among other properties. (SellAction: buyer,
SendAction: recipient etc.).

The dedicated properties have specific types, but maybe that is too
specific. Thing as expected type for the indirect object might be more
suitable.

E.g. the BuyAction has no specific indirect object yet. If I am not
mistaken, we cannot say "Harry bought Lilly a red jewel" right now. My
point: it is not so easy to specify the expected type for Lilly, it
might be a person or an animal or a car, for what we know.

If we had indirectObject on Action, it would be much easier to create
a subtype of Action without worrying if I should create a new property
for an indirect object or if I should reuse an existing one. Also
reuse of existing actions would be easier. Suppose we introduced
"recipient" on BuyAction, recipient being an Audience, Organization or
Person: I would need a different action if Lilly were a cat.

Was there a specific reason not to do it like this, e.g. not to have
an indirectObject on Action, but use properties on sub actions for it?

Best regards,
Dietrich

- -- 
Dietrich Schulten
Escalon System-Entwicklung
Bubenhalde 10
74199 Untergruppenbach
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Received on Saturday, 11 October 2014 14:49:02 UTC