- From: Peter F. Patel-Schneider <pfps@research.bell-labs.com>
- Date: Sun, 09 Mar 2003 12:50:08 -0500 (EST)
- To: costello@mitre.org
- Cc: www-rdf-logic@w3.org
From: "Roger L. Costello" <costello@mitre.org> Subject: NEED RESOLUTION: "Define" a class, or "Declare" a class? "Define" a property, or "Declare" a property? Date: Sun, 09 Mar 2003 09:13:02 -0500 > > Steven Gollery wrote: > > > What would be the right verb, then? For instance, the OWL Guide says: > > > > This document demonstrates the use of the OWL language to > > > > 1. formalize a domain by defining classes and properties of those > > classes, > > 2. define individuals and assert properties about them, and > > > > What would be appropriate in place of "defining" and "defines"? > > Right on Steven! When writing or talking about OWL there needs to be > some accepted term for "the creation of a class/property". > > Peter F. Patel-Schneider wrote: > > "You might consider the part of an OWL DL ontology that provides this > information as declarations of OWL properties." > > Peter, you used the term "declaration". Are you saying that the proper > terminology is to use "declaration", as exemplified by these > statements: > > Here is the "declaration" of the River class. > Here is the "declaration" of the length property. Nope, I'm not saying this. > This topic may seem small, but I feel that it is important. Without > the "correct" terminology people (such as myself) are left in a void > when trying to write or talk about OWL. /Roger Well, the point is that OWL doesn't really have the notion of definining or even declaring classes, properties, or individuals. OWL DL and OWL Lite do require that there be some way of determining whether a name used as a property is an object property or a data-valued property, and thus that property axioms do have some aspects of a declaration. If you want to be precise, you should say that a class or property axiom is providing information about a class or property, just as a fact provides information about an individual. If you want to be sloppy, and no harm results, there is little reason not to use definition (particularly for complete class axioms), but you should remember that you are being sloppy. Peter F. Patel-Schneider Bell Labs Research Lucent Technologies
Received on Sunday, 9 March 2003 12:50:24 UTC