Re: xml:lang [was Re: Outstanding Issues ]

At 12:16 PM 3/1/02 -0600, Pat Hayes wrote:
>>Literal:       <0,"35",en>
>>Lexical Form:  "35"
>>
>>The lexical form is that portion of the literal which is significant
>>to datatyping. Thus, if we paired the above literal with the datatype
>>xsd:integer, the pairing that is passed to the extra-RDF application is
>>(xsd:integer, "35") and not (xsd:integer, <0,"35",en>) because parseType
>>and language tags are irrelevant to datatyping and are superfluous insofar
>>as the mapping is concerned.
>
>But are they? We have considered German versus English decimals and US 
>versus UK date formats within the datatyping discussion. Seems to me that 
>datatyping and language tagging are going to be seen as closely related in 
>such cases. In the context of xsd:decimal, does "10,03"-fi equal "10.03"-en ?

Jeremy has already pointed out that I18N folks regard this as a 
localization issue, out of scope for RDF typing.

I'll add the observation that if RDF wants to talk about localized strings, 
then RDF vocabulary to do this can be introduced, and your proposals allow 
this without (I think) adding anything to the model theory you propose;  e.g.

    _:x numberWrittenInGerman "123,45" .
    _:x numberWrittenInAmerican "123.45" .

can be given perfectly reasonable and unsurprising interpretations 
according to the original model theory, without datatyping.  I think it is 
good that the datatyping proposal in front of us naturally extends this to 
cope with datatypes.

So, returning to your example, I think the intent is that neither 
"10,03"-fi nor "10.03"-en are valid members of the lexical space of 
xsd:decimal.  "10.03" would be such a member.  So we might have:

    _:x xsd:decimal "123.45" .
    _:x numberWrittenInGerman "123,45"-de .
    _:x numberWrittenInEnglish "123.45"-en .
    _:x numberWrittenInGerman "123,45" .
    _:x numberWrittenInEnglish "123.45" .

I think that datatyping can avoid dealing with language-tagged strings.  It 
is the semantics of other properties, such as numberWrittenInEnglish, that 
may address the question of equivalence or otherwise of strings with and 
without language tags.

#g



------------------------------------------------------------
Graham Klyne                    MIMEsweeper Group
Strategic Research              <http://www.mimesweeper.com>
<Graham.Klyne@MIMEsweeper.com>

Received on Monday, 4 March 2002 05:59:52 UTC