Re: Denotation of owl:Class

• From: Mike Dean <mdean@bbn.com>
• Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 06:03:56 -0700
• To: Brian McBride <bwm@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
• cc: RDF Core <w3c-rdfcore-wg@w3.org>
• Message-Id: <200304251303.GAA25239@escher.SD.BBN.COM>

> [[
> NOTE: owl:Class is defined as a subclass of rdfs:Class. The rationale for 
> having a separate OWL class construct lies in the restrictions on OWL DL 
> (and thus also on OWL Lite), which imply that not all RDFS classes are 
> legal OWL DL classes. In OWL Full these restrictions do not exist and 
> therefore owl:Class and rdfs:Class are the same there.
> ]]

Brian,

It may be helpful to think of this as owl:Class being a
proper subclass of rdfs:Class in OWL DL and OWL Lite, and an
"improper" (equivalent) subclass in OWL Full.  Recall that
class equivalance can be expressed by mutual subClassOf
relationships, so OWL DL and OWL Lite assert

  owl:Class rdfs:subClassOf rdfs:Class

while OWL Full adds

  rdfs:Class rdfs:subClassOf owl:Class

to make them equivalent.

	Mike

Received on Friday, 25 April 2003 09:05:29 UTC