• SkosDesign
• RelationshipsBetweenLabels
• ProposalFour

SKOS ISSUE-26: "Minimal Label Relation" Proposal

This is a proposal for resolution of [http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/track/issues/26 SKOS ISSUE-26] and for a solution to the candidate requirement [http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-skos-ucr-20070516/#R-RelationshipsBetweenLabels R-RelationshipsBetweenLabels]. See also IssuesProcess.

0. Summary

This proposal is intended to provide a minimal, extensible, mechanism for the representation of relationships of any arity between lexical labels, and for the association of such relationships with other resources (typically the concept which provides the context for the label relationship).

In common with the [http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swd-wg/2007Feb/0195.html "LabelRelation" (proposal one)] proposal for this issue, this proposal introduces a new class skos:LabelRelation.

In this proposal, however, any number of lexical labels may be involved in a label relationship whereas the [http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swd-wg/2007Feb/0195.html "LabelRelation"] proposal allows only two labels to be involved. This proposal could therefore be seen as a moderate generalisation of the [http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swd-wg/2007Feb/0195.html "LabelRelation"] proposal.

1. Vocabulary

The following vocabulary is required by this proposal:

No vocabulary is deprecated by this proposal.

2. Axiomatic Triples

The following triples are part of the normative semantics for this proposal:

3. Semantic Conditions

There are no further semantic conditions on the vocabulary of this proposal.

4. Consistent Examples

Some simple examples:

[] skos:labelRelated "FAO"@en; skos:labelRelated "Food and Agriculture Organization"@en.

[] skos:labelRelated "cow"@en; skos:labelRelated "vache"@fr.

ex:foo
  skos:seeLabelRelation [
    skos:labelRelated "foo"@en;
    skos:labelRelated "bar"@en;
  ].

N.B. the vocabulary of this proposal isn't intended to be used directly, but as an extension point, for example:

ex:AcronymRelation rdfs:subClassOf skos:LabelRelation.
ex:fullForm rdfs:subPropertyOf skos:labelRelated; rdfs:domain ex:AcronymRelation.
ex:acronymForm rdfs:subPropertyOf skos:labelRelated; rdfs:domain ex:AcronymRelation.

ex:FAO rdf:type skos:Concept;
  skos:prefLabel "Food and Agriculture Organization"@en; 
  skos:altLabel "FAO"@en;
  skos:seeLabelRelation [
    ex:fullForm "Food and Agriculture Organization"@en;
    ex:acronymForm "FAO"@en;
  ].

5. Inconsistent Examples

It is not possible to make inconsistent statements using the vocabulary of this proposal, other than by contradicting the disjointness axioms for the class skos:LabelRelation stated in the axiomatic triples above.

See also note on entailment directly below.

6. Entailment Rules

There are no entailments other than those that follow from the RDF and OWL semantics and the axiomatic triples given above.

N.B. This means that, for example, there does not necessarily have to be any correspondance between the lexical labels of a resource, and the labels involved in a label relation, to which the resource is related via the skos:seeLabelRelation property.

7. Syntactic Constraints

The following syntactic conditions apply to the vocabulary of this proposal:

8. Discussion

This proposal is intended to satisfy requirement [http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-skos-ucr-20070516/#R-RelationshipsBetweenLabels R-RelationshipsBetweenLabels] in the simplest possible way, and to avoid any complicated or possibly contentious logical consequences.

• [http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-rdf-concepts-20040210/ [RDF Concepts]] http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-rdf-concepts-20040210/

• [http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-rdf-mt-20040210/ [RDF Semantics]] http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-rdf-mt-20040210/

• [http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt [RFC 2199]] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt

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