RE: OWL comment - owl:OntologyProperty

At 5:19 PM +0100 5/9/03, Dickinson, Ian J wrote:
>Hi Guus,
>Thanks for your response.  I assumed that, presuming it wasn't just an
>accidental editorial artefact in as&s, OntologyProperty was a variant on
>AnnotationProperty, in that it is not allowed in property axioms.  Do the
>updated documents explain why both AnnotationProperty and OntologyProperty
>are needed?  ISTM that plurality of property types is potentially confusing
>to users of the language, especially if the differences between them are
>slim, and come down to nuances of the semantic treatment.
>
>Cheers,
>Ian

Hi Ian

After further reflection the WG has modified the rules in S&AS concerning
owl:OntologyProperty.
In the S&AS editors draft:
http://www-db.research.bell-labs.com/user/pfps/owl/semantics/syntax.html#2.3.1.3
we read:

axiom ::=
....
    | 'OntologyProperty(' ontologyPropertyID { annotation } ')'

which permits user defined ontology properties.

In the OWL Reference editors draft, this is recorded with these words:

http://www.daml.org/2002/06/webont/owl-ref-proposed#Ontology-def
[[
NOTE: The ontology-import construct owl:imports and the ontology-versioning
constructs owl:priorVersion, owl:backwardCompatibleWith and
owl:inCompatibleWith are defined in the OWL vocabulary as instances of the
OWL built-in class owl:OntologyProperty. Instances of owl:OntologyProperty
must have the class owl:Ontology as their domain and range. It is permitted
to define other instances of owl:OntologyProperty.
]]

>  Do the
>  updated documents explain why both AnnotationProperty and OntologyProperty
>  are needed?

Perhaps not, we feel this would give them undue weight.  The reason 
is to ensure that all OWL DL entailments are also OWL Full 
entailments.

>  ISTM that plurality of property types is potentially confusing
>  to users of the language, especially if the differences between them are
>  slim, and come down to nuances of the semantic treatment.

Yes, this is potentially confusing, we hope the new note above helps 
clarify the situation,

In summary we have accepted your comment that:
[[
This class does not seem to be referenced or
defined anywhere else in the specs (including in owl.owl), and it is not
clear what it is representing or what role it is playing.
]]
by adding text to OWL Reference.

Please let us know, cc-ing public-webont-comments@w3.org, whether this
response is satisfactory.

Thanks for your comment



-- 
Professor James Hendler				  hendler@cs.umd.edu
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Received on Wednesday, 25 June 2003 20:16:01 UTC