RE: a reification question from last year

Bill,

you wrote:
> Example: 
> 
>  (A) (Tom, hunts, Jerry) 
> 
>  (B) (rdf:type, X, rdf:Statement) 
>      (rdf:predicate, X, hunts) 
>      (rdf:subject, X, Tom) 
>      (rdf:object, X, Jerry) 
> 
> Does an RDF model containing (A) implicitly contain (B)? 
> Does (B) imply (A)? 

As for the first question, my answer would be "does it matter?". Unless
there is some triple in your system where X is the subject (the first
element of the triple), you have not introduced new information.

As for the second question, the answer is *definitely* "no", B does not
imply A: RDF statements, represented as triples, are considered "facts" from
the standpoint of a running RDF processor. In order to talk about statements
we do not consider as facts, we represent them in the reified form (this is
an explicit design decision we made in the M+S WG).

Regards,

	- Ora

--
Ora Lassila, <ora.lassila@nokia.com>
Research Manager
Agent Technology, Nokia Research Center / Boston
+1 (781) 993-4603 (please note new email & phone number!)

Received on Wednesday, 7 June 2000 09:53:35 UTC