RE: RDF terminology

Graham, 

> I've started collecting some suggested definitions into an 
> HTML document, before they get lost in the mailing archive.


Thanks for the source. This may a case of boy with a glossary, but I'll have
a go at comments and additions...

-Comments...

Reification: I don't think you need to qualify "a reification of statement
is not unique; there may be more than one reification of a statement" as
your opinion. Whether or not such reifications can be conflated doesn't
detract from these assertions being sound.

Reified statement. I think this debate is concluded (well I can wish). Might
as well hang myself: a statement can have an infinite number of
reifications, until someone can explain to me how we can generally decide
which binding resource in any of these reifications has primacy. Having an
infinite number of reifications is a separate matter from the equivalence of
these reifications.

Representation: Can it be added that members of the RDF Formal Model, in
implementations, are always representations of these entities?
 
Quoting: is this a generalisation of reification? That is, I don't
understand the how Quoting a statement stands in relation to a statement
reification.  

Model: "(b) An RDF Model, meaning a collection of RDF statements". Maybe:
"(b) An RDF Model, meaning a collection of RDF statement representations"

Context: "An environment within which some statements are taken to be true."
Is this say that a context is a referent for the truth (or falsity) of a
statement? Btw can we extend contexts to quantification? For a resource to
have a context suggests to me that the resource is existentially quantified
by that context... 



-Candidate additions...

M&S, RDFM&S: The RDF Model and Syntax Specification.

Metadata: "data describing Web resources" [M&S].

Entity: anything which exists or has existed. Web and RDF resources are
entities (?). Unfortunately I don't have a definition for exists ;)

Resource: same as RDF Resource. More properly "RDF Resource" is used to
distinguish "Resource" from "Web Resource".

Resource Identifier: "a URI plus optional anchor ID".[M&S] Resource
Identifiers are understood to name Resources.

Referent: the entity that a Resource describes. [M&S]

Distributive Referent: a Referent that describes all the Resources held in a
container, and not the container, though the Referent is said to be made on
the container. [M&S cut and paste]

Higher Order Statement [used by the M&S]: a Statement whose Referent is
another Statement.

Higher Order Context: a Context whose Referent is another Context.

Assertion Context: a context that asserts axiomatic truths. Or this where we
stop regressing and say that things just are the case without requiring a
further enclosing Context. Sorry, this is vague ... I wanted to address
Pierre's point about context regression. This is just a Context that isn't
nested inside another   Context.

Star: the graph of a Reification, where the Reified Statement has the four
arcs (type, subject predicate, object) in question. 

Quad: the four statements that constitute a Reification. Probably redundant
by now, we seem to be just using Reification.


-Bill

-----
Bill de hÓra  :  InterX  :  bdehora@interx.com




>

Received on Friday, 5 January 2001 09:06:19 UTC