- From: Patrick Stickler <patrick.stickler@nokia.com>
- Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 10:25:50 +0200
- To: ext Aaron Swartz <me@aaronsw.com>, Enrico Silterra <catluver67@yahoo.com>, RDF Interest <www-rdf-interest@w3.org>
On 2002-01-21 17:29, "ext Aaron Swartz" <me@aaronsw.com> wrote: > On 2002-01-18 10:38 AM, "Enrico Silterra" <catluver67@yahoo.com> wrote: > >> I would like to state that two properties are >> equivalent - synonyms > [...] >> Can they be declared as subProperties of each other? > > Yep, or you can use daml:samePropertyAs. > > See http://www.daml.org/ for more on DAML. I agree with Aaron. I've found it useful to think of rdfs:subPropertyOf as meaning that, for any property A that is an rdfs:subPropertyOf a property B, any valid value of A is also a valid value of B, according to the semantics attributed to A and B. Thus, if ex:name is an rdfs:subPropertyOf dc:title than any valid value for ex:name is also a valid value for dc:title; or, any value having a valid interpretation per the semantics attributed to ex:name has a valid interpretation according to the semantics attributed to dc:title. If dc:title is also an rdfs:subPropertyOf ex:name, then any valid value for dc:title is also a valid value for ex:name. And thus, you can see that ex:name and dc:title are synonymous, as a value of either is a valid value of the other. The daml:samePropertyAs can be considered to be an axiom such that if (A daml:samePropertyAs B) or (B daml:samePropertyAs A) then (A rdfs:subPropertyOf B) and (B rdfs:subPropertyOf A) An analogous axiomatic relation exists between daml:equivalentTo and rdfs:subClassOf. Cheers, Patrick -- Patrick Stickler Phone: +358 50 483 9453 Senior Research Scientist Fax: +358 7180 35409 Nokia Research Center Email: patrick.stickler@nokia.com
Received on Tuesday, 22 January 2002 03:24:55 UTC