- From: Craig Pugsley <cpugsley@bigfoot.com>
- Date: Mon, 7 May 2001 19:14:27 -0400 (EDT)
- To: "Lee Jonas" <ljonas@acm.org>, "Graham Klyne" <GK@ninebynine.org>
- Cc: "RDF Interest Group" <www-rdf-interest@w3.org>
> At 09:37 PM 4/26/01 +0100, Lee Jonas wrote: > >Yes, higher-order is incorrect terminology. I am a bit confused about > >calling it a meta-language, though. It depends on whether RDF is a > >'language' or not. > > I think the RDF graph structure *is* a language in the sense commonly used > by computer scientists and others... it has a set of component symbols and > generative rules governing the construction of well-formed "sentences" or > "formulae" from these. > > > Agreed certain RDF 'vocabularies' can be thought of as > >languages, so in that sense it would hold true. > > It's less clear to me that RDF vocabularies are languages in the same > sense, though it has been convenient at times to talk about them as > such. (The open-ended nature of RDF tends to mean that vocabularies don't > describe "sentence" construction in the same way that languages generally do.) > > #g Maybe I'm missing the point, but its my view that the key simile to a 'conventional' spoken language that RDF carries is its ability to convey semantic information. We use languages to convey our own personal semantic representations of abstract concepts and ideas we have. And this is exactly what RDF is intended to (or at least 'can') do. It is only through the agreement we have in our societies as to what these symbols and grammar rules actually mean, can we use the language to convey semantic information between intelligent entities. In this sense, the similarity between RDF schema and a language's grammar rules can be drawn. I'd say that RDF <is> a language, very much in the same sense as non computer-based language. My 2p's worth. IMHO, and all that. CraigP
Received on Wednesday, 9 May 2001 10:57:04 UTC