rdf(s):Literal and stuff like that

Guys, I think this discussion is getting confused. Look, there is a 
basic assumption about RDF expressions: they are USED to REFER TO 
things.  So when you write something of the form

AAA rdf:type BBB .

you are saying that the thing that 'AAA' refers to is in the class 
that 'BBB' refers to. You are *not* saying that AAA itself is in that 
class. This means that there really isn't much use for a class of 
literals, ie a class whose members are literals themselves. There is 
no way that you could possibly say (in RDF) that anything was in it. 
The only way make sense of

AAA rdf:type rdfs:Literal .

is that it says that AAA (not 'AAA') is in the class of literal 
*values*, not the class of literals. Notice by way of comparison that 
one uses a uriref, not a resource, to say that a resource is in 
rdfs:Resource. We don't call the universe rdfs:ResourceReference.

Pat

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Received on Friday, 6 September 2002 04:57:54 UTC