Re: Subjects as Literals

On 1 Jul 2010, at 12:21, Peter Ansell wrote:

>> 
>> 4. It has been noted that one can map datatyping into RDF itself by treating
>> the datatypes as properties, and there are several use cases for this. The
>> natural way to do it involves having literals as subject, since the dataype
>> map goes from the string to the value:
>> 
>> "23" xsd:number "23"^^xsd:number .
> 
> Would this imply that wherever the string "23" was used in any RDF
> triples you have access to, it would necessarily mean 23 (the number)?

No, the number 23 can be found by finding the string "23" and following the relation named
xsd:number to the number.

one could create another relation

"twenty three" numberinEnglish 23 .

which maps the string to the number.



> If I needed to accept that I could never use "23" to mean the letters
> 2 and 3 put together for any reason,

No the letters 2 and 3 put together is always the string "23" not the number.


> perhaps as a hex-encoding or
> trademarked symbol, because there would be no way of isolating it from
> the statement that it necessarily was a number and that it was the sum
> of 11 and 12, rather than "23" which was "2" and "3" put together and
> not equal to any number.

Look at it this way:

"23" -----xsd:number----> 23 .


Henry