Re: possible semantic bugs concerning domain and range

• From: Peter F. Patel-Schneider <pfps@research.bell-labs.com>
• Date: Mon, 23 Sep 2002 20:08:39 -0400 (EDT)
• To: jonathan@openhealth.org
• Cc: phayes@ai.uwf.edu, www-webont-wg@w3.org
• Message-Id: <20020923.200839.17083038.pfps@research.bell-labs.com>

From: "Jonathan Borden" <jonathan@openhealth.org>
Subject: Re: possible semantic bugs concerning domain and range
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 2002 17:55:38 -0400

> Peter F. Patel-Schneider wrote:
> > 
> > As far as OWL is concerned, 
> > 
> > foo rdfs:range bar .
> > 
> > should follow from
> > 
> > foo rdfs:range baz . 
> > baz rdfs:subClassOf bar .
> > 
> > This would fit in with the general OWL stance on these sorts of things.
> > 
> 
> I'm a bit confused.
> 
> suppose
> 
> foo rdfs:range ex:OddInteger .
> ex:OddInteger rdfs:subClassOf ex:Integer .
> 
> why would we want
> 
> foo rdfs:range ex:Integer .
> 
> to follow? Don't I want to restrict the range to odd integers?
> 
> Jonathan

Yes, and you get that, because ex:OddInteger is still a range of foo.
However, ex:integer is also a range of foo.

Think of what happens if you assert

 foo rdfs:range ex:OddInteger .
 ex:OddInteger rdfs:subClassOf ex:Integer .
 foo rdfs:range ex:Integer .

Aside from the actual rdfs:range stuff, this has the same interpretations
as

 foo rdfs:range ex:OddInteger .
 ex:OddInteger rdfs:subClassOf ex:Integer .

so why shouldn't a range of foo be ex:Integer?

peter

Received on Monday, 23 September 2002 20:08:51 UTC