- From: Frank Manola <fmanola@mitre.org>
- Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 11:01:32 -0400
- To: Brian McBride <bwm@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
- CC: Pat Hayes <phayes@ai.uwf.edu>, w3c-rdfcore-wg@w3.org
Brian-- Well, I *thought* I was clear as to what was being renamed: the part of the statement that identified the property part of the statement (and since there's only one of them, I don't really have a problem with a certain amount of overloading, if that's what it is)! If we want the terminology to make this distinction clearer, I see some trickiness on the horizon. The M&S also refers to "property name" (especially in the context of the XML serialization), but, as we now know, the property isn't identified by a simple "name", but by a URI (even though that's a name, in a slightly difference sense). That also means that the property is a resource, so you could have equally written: > The subject must (debatably) be a resource > > The predicate must be a resource > > The object may be a resource or a literal. What we want to say is something like "the property component of a statement specifies the resource acting in the role of property for this statement". We certainly need to distinguish that from situations in which a resource *is* a property, but we're referring to it in the subject or object positions of a statement (which are also possibilities). In any event, we probably want to change "predicate" to something else, as Pat suggests, since it may be a bit misleading in the context. --Frank Brian McBride wrote: > Just checking we are clear what is being renamed. M&S uses the term > predicate for a component of a statement. Thus a statement has three > components: > > a subject > a predicate > an object > > The subject must (debatably) be a resource > > The predicate must be a property > > The object may be a resource or a literal. > > The terms predicate and property in M&S mean different things. Are we > losing the distinction, or is this distinction just no longer applicable. > > Brian > > > Pat Hayes wrote: > >>> Frank: >>> I called it a "predicate" because that's the term used in the M&S. If >>> we've changed it officially, I must have missed it (where would this be >>> documented?). >> >> >> >> OK, let me make this a formal suggestion for an item. >> >> PROPOSED that: >> The things called 'predicates' in the M&S shall henceforth be called >> 'properties' (preferred) or 'relations'. >> This is in line with the standard usage in the description logic, >> database and formal logic communities, and is used in the DAML+OIL >> documentation. The term 'predicate' is deprecated as potentially >> misleading, since properties are not predicates in the sense that word >> is usually used in formal logic. >> >> Pat > > > -- Frank Manola The MITRE Corporation 202 Burlington Road, MS A345 Bedford, MA 01730-1420 mailto:fmanola@mitre.org voice: 781-271-8147 FAX: 781-271-875
Received on Monday, 22 October 2001 11:00:43 UTC