Re: A Model Theoretic Semantics for DAML-ONT

> 1) The "imports" statement is lacking semantics. The intent of "imports"
> is so that you can say the current ontology or document includes the
> rules and definitions from some other ontology. I imagine in order to
> define this formally in KIF, you would need to add something like the
> "ist" predicate (meaning "is true in") from context logic (see
> McCarthy's and Guha's work). Assuming you had such a predicate, where
> the first argument was an ontology, the second a predicate name, and the
> rest arguments of that predicate, you might add this rule:
> 
> (=> (imports ?o1 ?o2)(ist ?o2 ?p ?a1 ?a2)
>     (ist ?o1 ?p ?a1 ?a2))

Yes, we did not provide an axiomatization for "imports".  Your
suggestion to define and use an "is true in" relation would seem to
work.  Do you have an axiomization to suggest that defines "is true in"?

> 2) The following is used for the definition of "domain":
> 
> %% The object in an RDF statement of the form "(object property
> resource)"
> %% must be an instance of the domain of property.
> (=> (Property ?p)(domain ?p ?d)(holds ?p ?x ?y)(type ?x ?d))
> 
> This implies that if there is more than one domain stated for a
> property, that the "object" must be an instance of the intersection of
> these domains.
> However, the RDF Schema spec states "If there is more than one domain
> property, the constrained property can be used with instances of ANY of
> the classes..." That is, the "object" must be an instance of the union
> of the domains.
> 
> Personally, I like your definition better. If you use the RDF schema
> definition, then it becomes possible to extend an ontology in such a way
> that content marked up with respect to new ontology is incompatible with
> the extended ontology. Also, the RDF definition is meaningless (i.e.,
> you cannot deduce anything from it or perform type checking) unless you
> can close the world and guarantee that there do not exist any more
> domain statements for the property in question elsewhere on the Web.
> 
> I think this is a case where it is worth deviating from RDF, but would
> like to hear the opinions of others.

Yes, I would recommend adopting the axiomization of "domain" that we
specified for at least the compelling reasons you mention.

Thanks for your feedback.

Richard

Received on Tuesday, 14 November 2000 13:24:25 UTC