W3C Invites Implementations of RDF 1.2 Concepts and Abstract Data Model and RDF 1.2 Semantics

The RDF & SPARQL Working Group invites implementations of the following two Candidate Recommendation Snapshots.

RDF 1.2 Concepts and Abstract Data Model

The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a framework for representing information on the Web. This document defines an abstract data model which serves to link all RDF-based languages and specifications. The abstract data model has two key data structures:

• RDF graphs are sets of subject-predicate-object triples, where the elements may be IRIs, blank nodes, datatyped literals, or triple terms. They are used to express descriptions of resources.
• RDF datasets are used to organize collections of RDF graphs, and consist of a default graph and zero or more named graphs.

Compared to RDF 1.1, RDF 1.2 introduces the ability to use an RDF triple as a triple term, in the object position of another triple. RDF 1.2 also introduces directional language-tagged strings, which contain a base direction component that allows the initial text direction to be specified for presentation by a user agent. Finally, to ease the transition from RDF 1.1 to RDF 1.2, this specification introduces a mechanism for explicitly conveying the version of RDF that is used by a given piece of data.

This specification introduces key concepts and terminology for RDF 1.2, and subsequently discusses datatyping and the handling of fragment identifiers in IRIs within RDF graphs.

RDF 1.2 Semantics

This document describes a precise semantics for RDF 1.2 Concepts and Abstract Data Model and RDF 1.2 Schema. It defines a number of distinct entailment regimes and corresponding patterns of entailment. It is part of a suite of documents which comprise the full specification of RDF 1.2.

Comments are welcome by 5 May 2026.