- From: Graham Klyne <GK@NineByNine.org>
- Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 21:31:39 +0000
- To: RDF core WG <w3c-rdfcore-wg@w3.org>
Following today's teleconference, I was thinking some more about provenance (statements like document X says Y, possibly with other qualifications). The question raised was whether the statement (Y) referenced in an assertion of provenance was a statement token, or some lexically-based value, or an interpretation of (meaning of) the statement. Consider the case of a contract written in a foreign language. My lawyer may tell me that "the contact with abc, dated dmy, that I am about to sign commits me to pay P pounds in return for some good Q". This is a statement of provenance, but it is useless to me if it simply quotes the content of the contract -- I want to know the meaning (expressed in some language that I understand) of the content of the contract. My point is that there is a clear argument for suggesting that assertions of provenance should reference the meaning of the referenced statements, not their lexical form. Coming back to RDF: the expression of provenance that I favour is one along the lines of: X contains statements Y meaning the content of X entails assert(Y) (there is no interpretation in which I(content of X) is true, and I(assert(Y)) is false.) where X is an identifiable resource to which other properties can be added: X saidBy Person . X saidOn Date . X approvedBy Authority . etc. #g ------------ Graham Klyne (GK@ACM.ORG)
Received on Friday, 9 November 2001 16:57:08 UTC