[Crm-sig] reified association vs sub-event

[Carlo Meghini]

> 4. In RDF it is possible to make assertions about an RDF statement by using the RDF reification mechanism. RDF reification is generally considered to be pretty bad (a reified statement does not even entail the original statement).
> 
Well, I perceive this general sense of distaste for RDF reification, but I must confess I do not understand it. 

By reifying a triple (s p o) and assigning a URI u to it, one merely says that in the world there exists a linguistic resource that is a statement and is identified by u. Why should this imply that the statement is true? As we all know, the world is full of statements that are not necessarily true (like for instance this message), and we talk about these statements using names for them. Reification just supports this.

If one wants to say that the triple, in addition to exist as a resource in its own right, also happens to be true, then one just asserts the triple (s p o) by adding it to the graph. But this is a separate operation. It would be in my opinion wrong to assert the triple just because it exists.

Carlo
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Carlo Meghini                                                                      
Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologie della Informazione [ ISTI ]    
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche [ CNR ]                                      
Via G. Moruzzi, 1 - 56124 Pisa - Italy                                             
Tel: +39 050 6212893       E-Mail: Carlo.Meghini at isti.cnr.it   
Fax: +39 050 6213464       Web: nmis.isti.cnr.it/meghini/    
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