Qualified names in OWL Abstract Syntax

It says in the Semantics and Abstract Syntax Recommendation [1] that names
in the abstract syntax are RDF URI references and that often these names
will be abbreviated into qualified names, using a few well-known namespaces.

Was the intention that this abbreviation only be done in the Recommendation
document itself?

Was the intention that this abbreviation only be done with respect to the
five namespaces listed?

The reason I ask is that I have seen at least one tool that outputs Abstract
Syntax representations of ontologies that use namespaces and qualified
names, including user-defined names.

For example, the ontology presented in RDF/XML as:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rdf:RDF
    xmlns="http://a.com/ontology#"
    xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
    xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#"
    xmlns:owl="http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#"
  xml:base="http://a.com/ontology">
  <owl:Ontology rdf:about=""/>
  <owl:Class rdf:ID="foo"/>
</rdf:RDF>

is presented in Abstract Syntax as:
Namespace(rdf	= http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#)
Namespace(xsd	= http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#)
Namespace(rdfs	= http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#)
Namespace(owl	= http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#)
Namespace(a	= http://a.com/ontology#)
Ontology(
 Class(a:foo partial)
)

I can understand using the abbreviations in the Recommendation document but
I expected that tools that produced Abstract Syntax representations would
(have to) use absolute URI references, as described in the RDF Abstract
Syntax.

I can't find a mention of a Namespace terminal in the description of the
Abstract Syntax.

I would have expected the Abstract Syntax form of the above ontology to be:
Ontology(Class(http://a.com/ontology#foo partial))

Are both these forms of Abstract Syntax valid?

PS The first sentence of the second paragraph in section 2.1 is repeated.

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-owl-semantics-20040210/syntax.html

John Colgrave
IBM

Received on Thursday, 29 April 2004 08:27:22 UTC