Re: Modelling "proper names", and other topics

Graham Klyne wrote:

> The reason is to distinguish between different _uses_ of a property:
>    [SomeCity] --properName--> "Boston"
> and
>    [me] --properName--> "Graham"
> are two different instances of "properName".  The only way I know in RDF to
> distinguish them is through reification.

Well in the case of two different instances of a properName, Im thinking of
doing it as follows.  Take the example of your calling me "Seth Russell" but my
11 year old son calls me Popa.  So the RDF triples end up being:

[me] properName "Seth Russell"
[me] properName "Popa"

The question (i think you raise) is how does one name show up in one context
and not another.   Well, in my implementation of the RDF graph I add another
element, turning the triple into a quad as follows:

[C1] [me] properName "Seth Russell"
[C2] [me] properName "Popa"

Where [Cn] is just a node of type context.   In fact such a node would be no
different than your "container class" [1] but would be instantuated by the
extra quad above rather than as objects of the property "--rdfc:quotes-->".
The context nodes would form a hierarchy over a property (probably the inverse
of rdfc:member)  very much like a class hierarchy.   There would be another set
of properties (say rdfc:vocab) hanging off the context nodes  that would point
to words.   Following the context tree upward for inheritance and downward to a
set of vocabulary, we could always evaluate any context node to a set of
words.   That set of words is what would be presented to the user as the
definition of the context.

The user interface would allow for navigating these word sets.  You can easily
see how,  as the context nodes are navigated,  different assertions will show
up.   In the example above,  when I have selected [C2] and am seeing the
vocabulary set  {Jason, Pokemon, Mom, school, GameBoy } in the context window,
I would automatically expect [me] to be called "Popa".   Look ma, no
reification!

Does that make sense?   Can you think of a case where this contrivance would
not work?

How would you do it?

[1]
http://public.research.mimesweeper.com/RDF/RDFContexts.html#3.1.3.1Ageneralcontainerforsetsofresources|outline

Seth Russell

Received on Tuesday, 7 November 2000 10:47:22 UTC