domains and ranges in RDFS semantics

I have brought up this issue in passing, but it doesn't seem to have
resulted in a formal issue.

RDF Semantics states in Section 3.3:

	Similarly, some domain and range assertions are omitted from the
	above table; in those cases, the domain or range of the property
	may be taken to be rdfs:Resource, i.e., the universe; such range
	and domain assertions are essentially vacuous.

First, there is no need for a property to have a domain or range or to have
just one domain or ragne.  Therefore the first two clauses are misleading.

Second, domains and ranges are not iff in RDFS (although one might want
this to be the case).  Adding a domain or range of rdfs:Resource is not
vacuous.  Therefore the third clause is incorrect.


Peter F. Patel-Schneider
Bell Labs Research
Lucent Technologies

Received on Thursday, 27 March 2003 09:58:36 UTC