>Chris and all
>
>I was reading this yesterday
>
>http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-rdf-syntax/
>
># e subject is the URL http://www.example.org/index.html
># the predicate is the word "creator"
># the object is the phrase "John Smith"
>
>
>I my world (linguistic) this sounds wrong (01)
Well, linguistics is the study of human
languages, and RDF is something else. It is
perhaps a pity that the RDF metatheory uses the
same term, but this particular word "predicate"
is used with many different technical meanings.
In logic, for example, it often means a name
denoting a unary relation (aka a property). These
meanings are all loosely related, but only
loosely. In simple cases, the notions roughly
correspond. Thus if one takes a very simple
English declarative sentence, such as (02)
Harry kissed John (03)
then the verb (linguistics: predicate) is
'kissed', corresponding to the RDF property URI
(logically: relation symbol), as this might be
rendered in RDF as (04)
ex:Harry ex:kissed ex:John . (05)
and in logic (using CL syntax) as (06)
(kissed Harry John) (07)
BTW, the use of "predicate" in the RDF primer,
from which your example was taken, reflects the
logical meaning rather than the linguistic one. (08)
>why would RDF not reflect/embed/support a basic rule of linguistic semantics? (09)
Why would it? But in any case, *is* this really a
basic rule of linguistic semantics? It seems to
me nothing more than a matter of terminology. To
give a real semantics to anything approaching
full English syntax requires a much deeper
analysis of the structure of sentences. (010)
>is the question ill posed, or is RDF ill posed, in this respect?
>
>read also
>http://www.ontologicalsemantics.com/ (011)
Interesting. All I can say is, this describes a
highly idiosyncratic view of the state of the art
in all these areas, and not at all a standard
usage of terminology. (012)
Pat (013)
>
>cheers
>PDM
>
>
>
>On 1/2/08, Chris Menzel <cmenzel@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> On Tue, 1 Jan 2008, paola.dimaio@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
>> > Coming from a linguistic background, I have always thought that
>> > predicate is a verb
>>
>> Actually, the predicate of a sentence is usually identified with a verb
>> *phrase*, the part of the sentence that "makes the assertion about the
>> subject", as in your definition:
>>
>> > CF. The predicate of a sentence is the part of the sentence that makes
>> > the assertion about the subject. The main part of the predicate is a
>> > finite verb (which must be present). The predicate can be a verb
>> > alone, or a verb and other words related to it. ...
>> > www.ntgreek.org/learn_nt_greek/terms.htm
>>
>> Thus, e.g., the predicate of "John runs" is "runs" and the predicate of
>> "John loves Mary" is "loves Mary".
>>
>> > but on the W3C spec, there is no such requirement/constraint
>> >
>> > http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-concepts/#ref-rdf-semantics
>> >
>> > Is there no such implication that predicate must be a verb in rdf?
>>
>> The question is ill-formed, as there is no such concept as "verb" in
>> RDF. Indeed, there are no predicates per se in RDF, there are only
>> names (more specifically, URIs and literals) which denote "resources".
>> "predicate" itself just indicates a *role* that a name can play in an
>> RDF triple -- it is the name that "connects" the other two names in the
>> triple. Any name can be the predicate in a triple. That said, if an
>> RDF triple is used to represent a simple natural language sentence like
>> "John loves Mary" -- "<ex:j> <ex:l> <ex:m>", say -- the predicate in the
>> triple "<ex:l>" does in fact correspond to the verb in the sentence in
>> question.
>>
>> The W3C RDF semantics document (authored chiefly by Pat Hayes)
>> http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-rdf-mt-20040210 provides a very clear
>> account of these matters, though, it assumes some familiarity with basic
>> mathematical logic and set theory.
>>
>> -chris
>>
>>
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>
>
>--
>Paola Di Maio
>School of IT
>www.mfu.ac.th
>*********************************************
>
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