Issue 16258: A statement may express no proposition (sbvr-rtf) Source: International Business Machines (Mr. Mark H. Linehan, mlinehan(at)us.ibm.com) Nature: Uncategorized Issue Severity: Summary: In clause 8.3.3, in the glossary entry for "statement", SBVR has the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition ". This Necessity is also shown in figure 8.4 and is cited as an example on printed page 6. The issue is that some statements do not express propositions (i.e. a meaning that is true or false, per the definition of 'proposition' in 8.1.2). There are at least two types of statements that are neither true nor false: (a) paradoxes, such as "This statement is false"; (b) atemporal statements used with temporal worlds. For example, the statement "the board of director meets" is a proposition (i.e. either true or false) in an atemporal world (i.e.a world that only contains facts about one moment in time). But in a world that has records of multiple meetings of the board of directors, the statement is ambiguous. It can be understood as true if read as meaning "the board of directors meets at some time". It is either true or false (according to the facts in the world) if it is read as "the board of directors meets right now". Clearly a statement does not express a proposition when the statement is paradoxical or ambiguous. Suggested resolution: Revise the Necessity to read "Each statement expresses at most one proposition." Revise the figure and the example to match Resolution: Revised Text: Actions taken: May 20, 2011: received issue Discussion: End of Annotations:===== m -r issue16258 m -r issue16258Gmbject: A statement may express no proposition X-KeepSent: 158D3F89:05C85004-85257896:006CF6C2; type=4; name=$KeepSent To: juergen@omg.org Cc: sbvr-rtf@omg.org X-Mailer: Lotus Notes Release 8.5.1FP5 SHF29 November 12, 2010 From: Mark H Linehan Date: Fri, 20 May 2011 16:07:31 -0400 X-MIMETrack: Serialize by Router on D01MC604/01/M/IBM(Release 8.5.2FP1 ZX852FP1HF6|May 2, 2011) at 05/20/2011 16:07:34 In clause 8.3.3, in the glossary entry for "statement", SBVR has the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition ". This Necessity is also shown in figure 8.4 and is cited as an example on printed page 6. The issue is that some statements do not express propositions (i.e. a meaning that is true or false, per the definition of 'proposition' in 8.1.2). There are at least two types of statements that are neither true nor false: (a) paradoxes, such as "This statement is false"; (b) atemporal statements used with temporal worlds. For example, the statement "the board of director meets" is a proposition (i.e. either true or false) in an atemporal world (i.e.a world that only contains facts about one moment in time). But in a world that has records of multiple meetings of the board of directors, the statement is ambiguous. It can be understood as true if read as meaning "the board of directors meets at some time". It is either true or false (according to the facts in the world) if it is read as "the board of directors meets right now". Clearly a statement does not express a proposition when the statement is paradoxical or ambiguous. Suggested resolution: Revise the Necessity to read "Each statement expresses at most one proposition." Revise the figure and the example to match. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition X-KeepSent: A9B55B77:A2C591F8-85257899:0004EB83; type=4; name=$KeepSent To: sbvr-rtf@omg.org X-Mailer: Lotus Notes Release 8.5.1FP5 SHF29 November 12, 2010 From: Mark H Linehan Date: Sun, 22 May 2011 21:05:02 -0400 X-MIMETrack: Serialize by Router on D01MC604/01/M/IBM(Release 8.5.2FP1 ZX852FP1HF6|May 2, 2011) at 05/22/2011 21:05:06 So if I understand Don correctly, a sentence is a statement only if it is a logical proposition. That is, you can't tell from the expression itself whether a sentence is a statement. Instead, you have to figure out whether its meaning is limited to "true" and "false". If so, then the sentence is a proposition. Is that correct? Regarding my example "the board of director meets", the concern here is that in a temporal model EVERY sentence will be ambiguous if not labeled with a time reference. It seems quite a burden to make the user specify the time of all propositions. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: "Ronald G. Ross" To: Don Baisley , Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Date: 05/21/2011 07:33 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition A couple of quick comments: At 11:04 PM 5/20/2011, Don Baisley wrote: Mark, SBVR's concept of 'statement' works perfectly well for business semantics. SBVR also does not allow that a statement have two meanings. 'Statement' is not a synonym of 'sentence'. A sentence can have two meanings. A sentence can have no meaning. You can take your argument from the representation perspective to the meaning perspective by considering this example that is similar to your example: "This proposition is false". If that sentence has a meaning and the meaning is true or false, then the meaning is a proposition (according to SBVR's definition of 'proposition'). But I would not use that example to argue that the definition of 'proposition' is wrong. I would rather discuss useful meanings and kinds of meanings that have business purpose. Agree. I have never seen a (true) business rule that refers to itself. Anyway, if I did write the statement as a business rule, it might be something like: Both of the following are always true for this business rule: * It is true. * It is false. Wouldn't that simply be a (detectable) conflict? Perhaps we should amend the Accommodation Principle slightly by inserting "(or itself)": 12.3.2 The Accommodation Principle Principle: An element of guidance whose meaning conflicts with some other element(s) of guidance ***(or itself)*** must be taken that way; if no conflict is intended, the element(s) of guidance must be expressed in such a way as to avoid the conflict. Thoughts? [Additional comment below.] Best regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [ mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 4:42 PM To: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition Then there's something wrong with the definition of "statement". Would we not consider "this statement is false" and "the board of directors meets" as statements? Why couldn't the statement "the board of directors meets" simply be taken as ambiguous considering the temporal aspect? I would think that's the sort of thing SBVR tools should help people sort out. "Did you mean this ... or did you mean this?" SBVR can't do magic. People write ambiguous things(!). Ron Otherwise, SBVR is saying that expressions that look like statements are not statements if they do not represent meanings that are either true or false. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: Don Baisley To: Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, "juergen@omg.org" Cc: "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Date: 05/20/2011 05:41 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition SBVR's definition of 'statement' is "representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition". In Mark's email below, Mark is either using a non-SBVR concept of 'statement' or, using SBVR's concept, he is saying that a representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition does not necessarily express a proposition. Regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [ mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 1:08 PM To: juergen@omg.org Cc: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: A statement may express no proposition In clause 8.3.3, in the glossary entry for "statement", SBVR has the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition ". This Necessity is also shown in figure 8.4 and is cited as an example on printed page 6. The issue is that some statements do not express propositions (i.e. a meaning that is true or false, per the definition of 'proposition' in 8.1.2). There are at least two types of statements that are neither true nor false: (a) paradoxes, such as "This statement is false"; (b) atemporal statements used with temporal worlds. For example, the statement "the board of director meets" is a proposition (i.e. either true or false) in an atemporal world (i.e.a world that only contains facts about one moment in time). But in a world that has records of multiple meetings of the board of directors, the statement is ambiguous. It can be understood as true if read as meaning "the board of directors meets at some time". It is either true or false (according to the facts in the world) if it is read as "the board of directors meets right now". Clearly a statement does not express a proposition when the statement is paradoxical or ambiguous. Suggested resolution: Revise the Necessity to read "Each statement expresses at most one proposition." Revise the figure and the example to match. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: Don Baisley To: Mark H Linehan , "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition Thread-Topic: A statement may express no proposition Thread-Index: AQHMFym4uW8FjYuRqUm2c2Lbj4rEGpSWPDrggACZ5oD//8+eYIABSwG/gAIhKQD//4/RkA== Date: Mon, 23 May 2011 01:50:56 +0000 Accept-Language: en-US X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: x-originating-ip: [157.54.51.37] X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by amethyst.omg.org id p4N1j1xv012555 Mark, SBVR does not define 'sentence', but by common usage, a sentence can have multiple meanings. I pointed out that 'statement' is not a synonym of 'sentence'. I did not say that a statement could be a sentence or that a sentence could be a statement. SBVR's 'statement' is defined: representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition. You can read that definition, so I don't know why you're asking or why you would ask for help in understanding the logical implications of that definition. Notice that 'representation' is defined using objectification: a statement is an actuality, not an expression. > ... a sentence is a statement only if it is a logical proposition. I would not say that a sentence is a statement at all. Regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Sunday, May 22, 2011 6:05 PM To: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition So if I understand Don correctly, a sentence is a statement only if it is a logical proposition. That is, you can't tell from the expression itself whether a sentence is a statement. Instead, you have to figure out whether its meaning is limited to "true" and "false". If so, then the sentence is a proposition. Is that correct? Regarding my example "the board of director meets", the concern here is that in a temporal model EVERY sentence will be ambiguous if not labeled with a time reference. It seems quite a burden to make the user specify the time of all propositions. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: "Ronald G. Ross" To: Don Baisley , Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Date: 05/21/2011 07:33 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition A couple of quick comments: At 11:04 PM 5/20/2011, Don Baisley wrote: Mark, SBVR's concept of 'statement' works perfectly well for business semantics. SBVR also does not allow that a statement have two meanings. 'Statement' is not a synonym of 'sentence'. A sentence can have two meanings. A sentence can have no meaning. You can take your argument from the representation perspective to the meaning perspective by considering this example that is similar to your example: "This proposition is false". If that sentence has a meaning and the meaning is true or false, then the meaning is a proposition (according to SBVR's definition of 'proposition'). But I would not use that example to argue that the definition of 'proposition' is wrong. I would rather discuss useful meanings and kinds of meanings that have business purpose. Agree. I have never seen a (true) business rule that refers to itself. Anyway, if I did write the statement as a business rule, it might be something like: Both of the following are always true for this business rule: * It is true. * It is false. Wouldn't that simply be a (detectable) conflict? Perhaps we should amend the Accommodation Principle slightly by inserting "(or itself)": 12.3.2 The Accommodation Principle Principle: An element of guidance whose meaning conflicts with some other element(s) of guidance ***(or itself)*** must be taken that way; if no conflict is intended, the element(s) of guidance must be expressed in such a way as to avoid the conflict. Thoughts? [Additional comment below.] Best regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [ mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 4:42 PM To: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition Then there's something wrong with the definition of "statement". Would we not consider "this statement is false" and "the board of directors meets" as statements? Why couldn't the statement "the board of directors meets" simply be taken as ambiguous considering the temporal aspect? I would think that's the sort of thing SBVR tools should help people sort out. "Did you mean this ... or did you mean this?" SBVR can't do magic. People write ambiguous things(!). Ron Otherwise, SBVR is saying that expressions that look like statements are not statements if they do not represent meanings that are either true or false. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: Don Baisley To: Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, "juergen@omg.org" Cc: "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Date: 05/20/2011 05:41 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition SBVR's definition of 'statement' is "representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition". In Mark's email below, Mark is either using a non-SBVR concept of 'statement' or, using SBVR's concept, he is saying that a representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition does not necessarily express a proposition. Regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [ mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 1:08 PM To: juergen@omg.org Cc: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: A statement may express no proposition In clause 8.3.3, in the glossary entry for "statement", SBVR has the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition ". This Necessity is also shown in figure 8.4 and is cited as an example on printed page 6. The issue is that some statements do not express propositions (i.e. a meaning that is true or false, per the definition of 'proposition' in 8.1.2). There are at least two types of statements that are neither true nor false: (a) paradoxes, such as "This statement is false"; (b) atemporal statements used with temporal worlds. For example, the statement "the board of director meets" is a proposition (i.e. either true or false) in an atemporal world (i.e.a world that only contains facts about one moment in time). But in a world that has records of multiple meetings of the board of directors, the statement is ambiguous. It can be understood as true if read as meaning "the board of directors meets at some time". It is either true or false (according to the facts in the world) if it is read as "the board of directors meets right now". Clearly a statement does not express a proposition when the statement is paradoxical or ambiguous. Suggested resolution: Revise the Necessity to read "Each statement expresses at most one proposition." Revise the figure and the example to match. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research X-Yahoo-Newman-Id: 136195.54949.bm@omp1012.access.mail.sp2.yahoo.com DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=yahoo.com; s=s1024; t=1306116103; bh=Ll9pGuFBDNvsKt83nvxtojVMwNe6oTBm1Kxmc/Kbxh8=; h=Message-ID:Received:X-Yahoo-SMTP:X-YMail-OSG:X-Yahoo-Newman-Property:X-Mailer:Date:To:From:Subject:In-Reply-To:References:Mime-Version:Content-Type; b=jLK5rgR8vm0GmRqkz3Jc/UrhqdckbhMFFQT+O5kkL+T0UdnugB0OYZERkVwvLrNug9acBlTWLWSoIX1rbEw7GxgmgJTPlyZAlTx70TIPDyJ5t7AWOqC9rnoVoWdkr8pdOyuSYxAjCKjDb2neH74rCyR9Y0zpEzMxlLZtg3W7uUo= X-Yahoo-SMTP: MhfrpU2swBDLgYiYhNQDHBu0cE4o.vu2We1FRN9o X-YMail-OSG: JxKHnpkVM1nOWSqSri5ZerEE5ZKNVIwUF9HIj0t5juSya3l Mg8LXw2ZHw4EcqDIfZVr48uZHTHFNshW9TQyeTis4QUdNVRmj8Is3Trk2yHl pFav60RjqbxoC7TbCMfSJt5hRBy7kdFegmV1dVwBKd5cK3Zi2W824QhyLNqE kAb0u0l70xWj3DRL6KNoDe_5irD4avbMCIiuqlTCnxhBii.MpMg_GOB1xiXb iOYJgzu9kFVddeIoMtHvBJY.PaKlhnSwKVY.QpmVOWn9NlkcMwfhkxYhlD.7 Sv4sYo0BnPtQe4nXbUlbkIvitCprcP5568IeCtQxmTzwtJsyI5YOAQlI0aw- - X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: ymail-3 X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 7.1.0.9 Date: Sun, 22 May 2011 21:01:35 -0500 To: Mark H Linehan , sbvr-rtf@omg.org From: "Ronald G. Ross" Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition At 08:05 PM 5/22/2011, Mark H Linehan wrote: So if I understand Don correctly, a sentence is a statement only if it is a logical proposition. That is, you can't tell from the expression itself whether a sentence is a statement. Instead, you have to figure out whether its meaning is limited to "true" and "false". If so, then the sentence is a proposition. Is that correct? [Defer to others.] Regarding my example "the board of director meets", the concern here is that in a temporal model EVERY sentence will be ambiguous if not labeled with a time reference. It seems quite a burden to make the user specify the time of all propositions. In the following two rules where is the need for labeling with a time reference? You have to assume "at all times" unless the rule itself says differently (Wholeness Principle). * A hard hat must be worn in a construction site. * It is impossible that a bird has hair. Ron -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: "Ronald G. Ross" To: Don Baisley , Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Date: 05/21/2011 07:33 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition A couple of quick comments: At 11:04 PM 5/20/2011, Don Baisley wrote: Mark, SBVR's concept of 'statement' works perfectly well for business semantics. SBVR also does not allow that a statement have two meanings. 'Statement' is not a synonym of 'sentence'. A sentence can have two meanings. A sentence can have no meaning. You can take your argument from the representation perspective to the meaning perspective by considering this example that is similar to your example: "This proposition is false". If that sentence has a meaning and the meaning is true or false, then the meaning is a proposition (according to SBVR's definition of 'proposition'). But I would not use that example to argue that the definition of 'proposition' is wrong. I would rather discuss useful meanings and kinds of meanings that have business purpose. Agree. I have never seen a (true) business rule that refers to itself. Anyway, if I did write the statement as a business rule, it might be something like: Both of the following are always true for this business rule: * It is true. * It is false. Wouldn't that simply be a (detectable) conflict? Perhaps we should amend the Accommodation Principle slightly by inserting "(or itself)": 12.3.2 The Accommodation Principle Principle: An element of guidance whose meaning conflicts with some other element(s) of guidance ***(or itself)*** must be taken that way; if no conflict is intended, the element(s) of guidance must be expressed in such a way as to avoid the conflict. Thoughts? [Additional comment below.] Best regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [ mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 4:42 PM To: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition Then there's something wrong with the definition of "statement". Would we not consider "this statement is false" and "the board of directors meets" as statements? Why couldn't the statement "the board of directors meets" simply be taken as ambiguous considering the temporal aspect? I would think that's the sort of thing SBVR tools should help people sort out. "Did you mean this ... or did you mean this?" SBVR can't do magic. People write ambiguous things(!). Ron Otherwise, SBVR is saying that expressions that look like statements are not statements if they do not represent meanings that are either true or false. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: Don Baisley To: Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, "juergen@omg.org" Cc: "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Date: 05/20/2011 05:41 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition SBVR's definition of 'statement' is "representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition". In Mark's email below, Mark is either using a non-SBVR concept of 'statement' or, using SBVR's concept, he is saying that a representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition does not necessarily express a proposition. Regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [ mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 1:08 PM To: juergen@omg.org Cc: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: A statement may express no proposition In clause 8.3.3, in the glossary entry for "statement", SBVR has the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition ". This Necessity is also shown in figure 8.4 and is cited as an example on printed page 6. The issue is that some statements do not express propositions (i.e. a meaning that is true or false, per the definition of 'proposition' in 8.1.2). There are at least two types of statements that are neither true nor false: (a) paradoxes, such as "This statement is false"; (b) atemporal statements used with temporal worlds. For example, the statement "the board of director meets" is a proposition (i.e. either true or false) in an atemporal world (i.e.a world that only contains facts about one moment in time). But in a world that has records of multiple meetings of the board of directors, the statement is ambiguous. It can be understood as true if read as meaning "the board of directors meets at some time". It is either true or false (according to the facts in the world) if it is read as "the board of directors meets right now". Clearly a statement does not express a proposition when the statement is paradoxical or ambiguous. Suggested resolution: Revise the Necessity to read "Each statement expresses at most one proposition." Revise the figure and the example to match. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition X-KeepSent: F10BA161:98AB1FF4-85257899:000D0AD5; type=4; name=$KeepSent To: sbvr-rtf@omg.org X-Mailer: Lotus Notes Release 8.5.1FP5 SHF29 November 12, 2010 From: Mark H Linehan Date: Sun, 22 May 2011 22:29:02 -0400 X-MIMETrack: Serialize by Router on D01MC604/01/M/IBM(Release 8.5.2FP1 ZX852FP1HF6|May 2, 2011) at 05/22/2011 22:29:06 Ron, regarding your examples: * A hard hat must be worn in a construction site. We are debating whether statements like this should be interpreted as meaning (a) "at all times"; (b) "at some time"; or (c ) "at the present time" (where "present time" must be defined for each temporal model). The problem with (a) and (b) is that they make some expressions (e.g. "Sid is ill") simultaneously true and false. Solution (c ) would at least work for this expression. * It is impossible that a bird has hair. This is an alethic rule. Such rules apply always -- in two meanings of "always": in all possible worlds, and at all times. I believe we have agreement on that. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: "Ronald G. Ross" To: Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, sbvr-rtf@omg.org Date: 05/22/2011 10:02 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition At 08:05 PM 5/22/2011, Mark H Linehan wrote: So if I understand Don correctly, a sentence is a statement only if it is a logical proposition. That is, you can't tell from the expression itself whether a sentence is a statement. Instead, you have to figure out whether its meaning is limited to "true" and "false". If so, then the sentence is a proposition. Is that correct? [Defer to others.] Regarding my example "the board of director meets", the concern here is that in a temporal model EVERY sentence will be ambiguous if not labeled with a time reference. It seems quite a burden to make the user specify the time of all propositions. In the following two rules where is the need for labeling with a time reference? You have to assume "at all times" unless the rule itself says differently (Wholeness Principle). * A hard hat must be worn in a construction site. * It is impossible that a bird has hair. Ron -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: "Ronald G. Ross" To: Don Baisley , Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Date: 05/21/2011 07:33 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition A couple of quick comments: At 11:04 PM 5/20/2011, Don Baisley wrote: Mark, SBVR's concept of 'statement' works perfectly well for business semantics. SBVR also does not allow that a statement have two meanings. 'Statement' is not a synonym of 'sentence'. A sentence can have two meanings. A sentence can have no meaning. You can take your argument from the representation perspective to the meaning perspective by considering this example that is similar to your example: "This proposition is false". If that sentence has a meaning and the meaning is true or false, then the meaning is a proposition (according to SBVR's definition of 'proposition'). But I would not use that example to argue that the definition of 'proposition' is wrong. I would rather discuss useful meanings and kinds of meanings that have business purpose. Agree. I have never seen a (true) business rule that refers to itself. Anyway, if I did write the statement as a business rule, it might be something like: Both of the following are always true for this business rule: * It is true. * It is false. Wouldn't that simply be a (detectable) conflict? Perhaps we should amend the Accommodation Principle slightly by inserting "(or itself)": 12.3.2 The Accommodation Principle Principle: An element of guidance whose meaning conflicts with some other element(s) of guidance ***(or itself)*** must be taken that way; if no conflict is intended, the element(s) of guidance must be expressed in such a way as to avoid the conflict. Thoughts? [Additional comment below.] Best regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [ mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 4:42 PM To: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition Then there's something wrong with the definition of "statement". Would we not consider "this statement is false" and "the board of directors meets" as statements? Why couldn't the statement "the board of directors meets" simply be taken as ambiguous considering the temporal aspect? I would think that's the sort of thing SBVR tools should help people sort out. "Did you mean this ... or did you mean this?" SBVR can't do magic. People write ambiguous things(!). Ron Otherwise, SBVR is saying that expressions that look like statements are not statements if they do not represent meanings that are either true or false. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: Don Baisley To: Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, "juergen@omg.org" Cc: "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Date: 05/20/2011 05:41 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition SBVR's definition of 'statement' is "representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition". In Mark's email below, Mark is either using a non-SBVR concept of 'statement' or, using SBVR's concept, he is saying that a representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition does not necessarily express a proposition. Regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [ mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 1:08 PM To: juergen@omg.org Cc: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: A statement may express no proposition In clause 8.3.3, in the glossary entry for "statement", SBVR has the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition ". This Necessity is also shown in figure 8.4 and is cited as an example on printed page 6. The issue is that some statements do not express propositions (i.e. a meaning that is true or false, per the definition of 'proposition' in 8.1.2). There are at least two types of statements that are neither true nor false: (a) paradoxes, such as "This statement is false"; (b) atemporal statements used with temporal worlds. For example, the statement "the board of director meets" is a proposition (i.e. either true or false) in an atemporal world (i.e.a world that only contains facts about one moment in time). But in a world that has records of multiple meetings of the board of directors, the statement is ambiguous. It can be understood as true if read as meaning "the board of directors meets at some time". It is either true or false (according to the facts in the world) if it is read as "the board of directors meets right now". Clearly a statement does not express a proposition when the statement is paradoxical or ambiguous. Suggested resolution: Revise the Necessity to read "Each statement expresses at most one proposition." Revise the figure and the example to match. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research X-Yahoo-Newman-Id: 850453.559.bm@omp1019.access.mail.sp2.yahoo.com DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=yahoo.com; s=s1024; t=1306119394; bh=AfzYOevEEkIlhLQY5PfyxUi1LF4dH4IR8tpv2NuMF5o=; h=Message-ID:Received:X-Yahoo-SMTP:X-YMail-OSG:X-Yahoo-Newman-Property:X-Mailer:Date:To:From:Subject:In-Reply-To:References:Mime-Version:Content-Type; b=IFe6ymmbzg1eq7mySYXueLR1eGxkfaosxCXnHF+PQUBM/XyBHS+s0uVKX6alkTHgY6iwYWC8uvD1cwR2iL1BWPqSwozkhKzIk3OddGoyzhZQMjZsCVHmAi3E/dFjx2XzLrz64stoUKzDUvBV3kIm/6x05+Jf+DOdZ+58ch6Rg2E= X-Yahoo-SMTP: MhfrpU2swBDLgYiYhNQDHBu0cE4o.vu2We1FRN9o X-YMail-OSG: pLdJQ2YVM1kMuUIR6gQclqYhV4HM7KUTHXptZ9Om3hDe4ud aY7VrvffnRMcnwWUzbUSZpYTvcTZVKvDJIbd_17l6e8ZWtqMIihL7iWoF1Sr EKS4YYx3MwqThj.NFNRVWT0zR_hO2fPv0u_nA40cZ_N6UWyVKAe9e8t0GcO1 tiPqsLDRf727FLkivC44br3KuEnmlEjriqitjOXFBJcZYQlTXSMzYo.ThnPN UhG1WTevUjCYW1qy8SCkHtD2cNPTbgOdMUwy8TB_e.5VyySZ7uQ5.rt6CBH9 pqC36WgNIriMQFFUMQCrVOXupJp1G5S2bYZOxniCUrDqNsQ-- X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: ymail-3 X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 7.1.0.9 Date: Sun, 22 May 2011 21:56:26 -0500 To: Mark H Linehan , sbvr-rtf@omg.org From: "Ronald G. Ross" Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition At 09:29 PM 5/22/2011, Mark H Linehan wrote: Ron, regarding your examples: * A hard hat must be worn in a construction site. We are debating whether statements like this should be interpreted as meaning (a) "at all times"; (b) "at some time"; or (c ) "at the present time" It has to be taken to mean (a) "at all times" (because I didn't say otherwise ... Wholeness Principle). What I really wanted to say was: A hard hat must be worn (on the head) by every person in a construction site *while* the person is in the construction site. That's what a business person would most likely mean. This is the kind of thing that interactive, front-end tooling should help business analysts clarify. You can't imagine how valuable that would be. With respect to the semantics of business rules, I'm not sure where you guys are going(?). (where "present time" must be defined for each temporal model). I don't understand ... The problem with (a) and (b) is that they make some expressions (e.g. "Sid is ill") simultaneously true and false. Solution (c ) would at least work for this expression. Of course, that's a fact, not a rule. If a business person said "Sid is ill", they would probably mean (c) "at the present time". Otherwise, they would (should) say "Sid has been ill." ... or "Sid is frequently ill." ... or Sid is mentally ill ... or "Sid has a plan to be ill." Somewhere along the line you have to say what you mean. SBVR can't do magic (and shouldn't try to for its purpose). Ron * It is impossible that a bird has hair. This is an alethic rule. Such rules apply always -- in two meanings of "always": in all possible worlds, and at all times. I believe we have agreement on that. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: "Ronald G. Ross" To: Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, sbvr-rtf@omg.org Date: 05/22/2011 10:02 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition At 08:05 PM 5/22/2011, Mark H Linehan wrote: So if I understand Don correctly, a sentence is a statement only if it is a logical proposition. That is, you can't tell from the expression itself whether a sentence is a statement. Instead, you have to figure out whether its meaning is limited to "true" and "false". If so, then the sentence is a proposition. Is that correct? [Defer to others.] Regarding my example "the board of director meets", the concern here is that in a temporal model EVERY sentence will be ambiguous if not labeled with a time reference. It seems quite a burden to make the user specify the time of all propositions. In the following two rules where is the need for labeling with a time reference? You have to assume "at all times" unless the rule itself says differently (Wholeness Principle). * A hard hat must be worn in a construction site. * It is impossible that a bird has hair. Ron -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: "Ronald G. Ross" To: Don Baisley , Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Date: 05/21/2011 07:33 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition A couple of quick comments: At 11:04 PM 5/20/2011, Don Baisley wrote: Mark, SBVR's concept of 'statement' works perfectly well for business semantics. SBVR also does not allow that a statement have two meanings. 'Statement' is not a synonym of 'sentence'. A sentence can have two meanings. A sentence can have no meaning. You can take your argument from the representation perspective to the meaning perspective by considering this example that is similar to your example: "This proposition is false". If that sentence has a meaning and the meaning is true or false, then the meaning is a proposition (according to SBVR's definition of 'proposition'). But I would not use that example to argue that the definition of 'proposition' is wrong. I would rather discuss useful meanings and kinds of meanings that have business purpose. Agree. I have never seen a (true) business rule that refers to itself. Anyway, if I did write the statement as a business rule, it might be something like: Both of the following are always true for this business rule: * It is true. * It is false. Wouldn't that simply be a (detectable) conflict? Perhaps we should amend the Accommodation Principle slightly by inserting "(or itself)": 12.3.2 The Accommodation Principle Principle: An element of guidance whose meaning conflicts with some other element(s) of guidance ***(or itself)*** must be taken that way; if no conflict is intended, the element(s) of guidance must be expressed in such a way as to avoid the conflict. Thoughts? [Additional comment below.] Best regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [ mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 4:42 PM To: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition Then there's something wrong with the definition of "statement". Would we not consider "this statement is false" and "the board of directors meets" as statements? Why couldn't the statement "the board of directors meets" simply be taken as ambiguous considering the temporal aspect? I would think that's the sort of thing SBVR tools should help people sort out. "Did you mean this ... or did you mean this?" SBVR can't do magic. People write ambiguous things(!). Ron Otherwise, SBVR is saying that expressions that look like statements are not statements if they do not represent meanings that are either true or false. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: Don Baisley To: Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, "juergen@omg.org" Cc: "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Date: 05/20/2011 05:41 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition SBVR's definition of 'statement' is "representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition". In Mark's email below, Mark is either using a non-SBVR concept of 'statement' or, using SBVR's concept, he is saying that a representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition does not necessarily express a proposition. Regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [ mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 1:08 PM To: juergen@omg.org Cc: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: A statement may express no proposition In clause 8.3.3, in the glossary entry for "statement", SBVR has the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition ". This Necessity is also shown in figure 8.4 and is cited as an example on printed page 6. The issue is that some statements do not express propositions (i.e. a meaning that is true or false, per the definition of 'proposition' in 8.1.2). There are at least two types of statements that are neither true nor false: (a) paradoxes, such as "This statement is false"; (b) atemporal statements used with temporal worlds. For example, the statement "the board of director meets" is a proposition (i.e. either true or false) in an atemporal world (i.e.a world that only contains facts about one moment in time). But in a world that has records of multiple meetings of the board of directors, the statement is ambiguous. It can be understood as true if read as meaning "the board of directors meets at some time". It is either true or false (according to the facts in the world) if it is read as "the board of directors meets right now". Clearly a statement does not express a proposition when the statement is paradoxical or ambiguous. Suggested resolution: Revise the Necessity to read "Each statement expresses at most one proposition." Revise the figure and the example to match. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: Don Baisley To: "Ronald G. Ross" , Mark H Linehan , "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition Thread-Topic: A statement may express no proposition Thread-Index: AQHMFym4uW8FjYuRqUm2c2Lbj4rEGpSWPDrggACZ5oD//8+eYIABSwG/gAIhKQD//5r46IAAfIAA//+SqQAAAzbCIA== Date: Mon, 23 May 2011 04:40:32 +0000 Accept-Language: en-US X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: x-originating-ip: [157.54.51.37] You make a good points Ron: > If a business person said "Sid is ill", they would probably mean (c) "at the present time". > Otherwise, they would (should) say "Sid has been ill." ... If we take .Sid is ill. to mean .(Sid is ill) at all times., then we would have to take .Sid has been ill. to mean .(Sid has been ill) at all times., from which we would logically conclude that Sid was ill at the beginning of time. Adding .at all times. or .at some time. to all facts would certainly create contradictions in a lot of models. > Somewhere along the line you have to say what you mean. Amen. Let the facts be the facts. Enjoy, Don From: Ronald G. Ross [mailto:rross@brsolutions.com] Sent: Sunday, May 22, 2011 7:56 PM To: Mark H Linehan; sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition At 09:29 PM 5/22/2011, Mark H Linehan wrote: Ron, regarding your examples: * A hard hat must be worn in a construction site. We are debating whether statements like this should be interpreted as meaning (a) "at all times"; (b) "at some time"; or (c ) "at the present time" It has to be taken to mean (a) "at all times" (because I didn't say otherwise ... Wholeness Principle). What I really wanted to say was: A hard hat must be worn (on the head) by every person in a construction site *while* the person is in the construction site. That's what a business person would most likely mean. This is the kind of thing that interactive, front-end tooling should help business analysts clarify. You can't imagine how valuable that would be. With respect to the semantics of business rules, I'm not sure where you guys are going(?). (where "present time" must be defined for each temporal model). I don't understand ... The problem with (a) and (b) is that they make some expressions (e.g. "Sid is ill") simultaneously true and false. Solution (c ) would at least work for this expression. Of course, that's a fact, not a rule. If a business person said "Sid is ill", they would probably mean (c) "at the present time". Otherwise, they would (should) say "Sid has been ill." ... or "Sid is frequently ill." ... or Sid is mentally ill ... or "Sid has a plan to be ill." Somewhere along the line you have to say what you mean. SBVR can't do magic (and shouldn't try to for its purpose). Ron * It is impossible that a bird has hair. This is an alethic rule. Such rules apply always -- in two meanings of "always": in all possible worlds, and at all times. I believe we have agreement on that. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: "Ronald G. Ross" To: Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, sbvr-rtf@omg.org Date: 05/22/2011 10:02 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition At 08:05 PM 5/22/2011, Mark H Linehan wrote: So if I understand Don correctly, a sentence is a statement only if it is a logical proposition. That is, you can't tell from the expression itself whether a sentence is a statement. Instead, you have to figure out whether its meaning is limited to "true" and "false". If so, then the sentence is a proposition. Is that correct? [Defer to others.] Regarding my example "the board of director meets", the concern here is that in a temporal model EVERY sentence will be ambiguous if not labeled with a time reference. It seems quite a burden to make the user specify the time of all propositions. In the following two rules where is the need for labeling with a time reference? You have to assume "at all times" unless the rule itself says differently (Wholeness Principle). * A hard hat must be worn in a construction site. * It is impossible that a bird has hair. Ron -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: "Ronald G. Ross" To: Don Baisley , Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Date: 05/21/2011 07:33 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition A couple of quick comments: At 11:04 PM 5/20/2011, Don Baisley wrote: Mark, SBVR's concept of 'statement' works perfectly well for business semantics. SBVR also does not allow that a statement have two meanings. 'Statement' is not a synonym of 'sentence'. A sentence can have two meanings. A sentence can have no meaning. You can take your argument from the representation perspective to the meaning perspective by considering this example that is similar to your example: "This proposition is false". If that sentence has a meaning and the meaning is true or false, then the meaning is a proposition (according to SBVR's definition of 'proposition'). But I would not use that example to argue that the definition of 'proposition' is wrong. I would rather discuss useful meanings and kinds of meanings that have business purpose. Agree. I have never seen a (true) business rule that refers to itself. Anyway, if I did write the statement as a business rule, it might be something like: Both of the following are always true for this business rule: * It is true. * It is false. Wouldn't that simply be a (detectable) conflict? Perhaps we should amend the Accommodation Principle slightly by inserting "(or itself)": 12.3.2 The Accommodation Principle Principle: An element of guidance whose meaning conflicts with some other element(s) of guidance ***(or itself)*** must be taken that way; if no conflict is intended, the element(s) of guidance must be expressed in such a way as to avoid the conflict. Thoughts? [Additional comment below.] Best regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [ mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 4:42 PM To: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition Then there's something wrong with the definition of "statement". Would we not consider "this statement is false" and "the board of directors meets" as statements? Why couldn't the statement "the board of directors meets" simply be taken as ambiguous considering the temporal aspect? I would think that's the sort of thing SBVR tools should help people sort out. "Did you mean this ... or did you mean this?" SBVR can't do magic. People write ambiguous things(!). Ron Otherwise, SBVR is saying that expressions that look like statements are not statements if they do not represent meanings that are either true or false. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: Don Baisley To: Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, "juergen@omg.org" Cc: "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Date: 05/20/2011 05:41 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition SBVR's definition of 'statement' is "representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition". In Mark's email below, Mark is either using a non-SBVR concept of 'statement' or, using SBVR's concept, he is saying that a representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition does not necessarily express a proposition. Regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [ mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 1:08 PM To: juergen@omg.org Cc: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: A statement may express no proposition In clause 8.3.3, in the glossary entry for "statement", SBVR has the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition ". This Necessity is also shown in figure 8.4 and is cited as an example on printed page 6. The issue is that some statements do not express propositions (i.e. a meaning that is true or false, per the definition of 'proposition' in 8.1.2). There are at least two types of statements that are neither true nor false: (a) paradoxes, such as "This statement is false"; (b) atemporal statements used with temporal worlds. For example, the statement "the board of director meets" is a proposition (i.e. either true or false) in an atemporal world (i.e.a world that only contains facts about one moment in time). But in a world that has records of multiple meetings of the board of directors, the statement is ambiguous. It can be understood as true if read as meaning "the board of directors meets at some time". It is either true or false (according to the facts in the world) if it is read as "the board of directors meets right now". Clearly a statement does not express a proposition when the statement is paradoxical or ambiguous. Suggested resolution: Revise the Necessity to read "Each statement expresses at most one proposition." Revise the figure and the example to match. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: Don Baisley To: Mark H Linehan , "juergen@omg.org" CC: "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition Thread-Topic: A statement may express no proposition Thread-Index: AQHMFym4uW8FjYuRqUm2c2Lbj4rEGpSWPDrg Date: Fri, 20 May 2011 21:40:48 +0000 Accept-Language: en-US X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: x-originating-ip: [157.54.51.75] X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by amethyst.omg.org id p4KLYthl022331 SBVR's definition of 'statement' is "representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition". In Mark's email below, Mark is either using a non-SBVR concept of 'statement' or, using SBVR's concept, he is saying that a representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition does not necessarily express a proposition. Regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 1:08 PM To: juergen@omg.org Cc: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: A statement may express no proposition In clause 8.3.3, in the glossary entry for "statement", SBVR has the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition ". This Necessity is also shown in figure 8.4 and is cited as an example on printed page 6. The issue is that some statements do not express propositions (i.e. a meaning that is true or false, per the definition of 'proposition' in 8.1.2). There are at least two types of statements that are neither true nor false: (a) paradoxes, such as "This statement is false"; (b) atemporal statements used with temporal worlds. For example, the statement "the board of director meets" is a proposition (i.e. either true or false) in an atemporal world (i.e.a world that only contains facts about one moment in time). But in a world that has records of multiple meetings of the board of directors, the statement is ambiguous. It can be understood as true if read as meaning "the board of directors meets at some time". It is either true or false (according to the facts in the world) if it is read as "the board of directors meets right now". Clearly a statement does not express a proposition when the statement is paradoxical or ambiguous. Suggested resolution: Revise the Necessity to read "Each statement expresses at most one proposition." Revise the figure and the example to match. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition X-KeepSent: CAC5FD13:421DAE18-85257896:008112FF; type=4; name=$KeepSent To: sbvr-rtf@omg.org X-Mailer: Lotus Notes Release 8.5.1FP5 SHF29 November 12, 2010 From: Mark H Linehan Date: Fri, 20 May 2011 19:42:17 -0400 X-MIMETrack: Serialize by Router on D01MC604/01/M/IBM(Release 8.5.2FP1 ZX852FP1HF6|May 2, 2011) at 05/20/2011 19:42:21 Then there's something wrong with the definition of "statement". Would we not consider "this statement is false" and "the board of directors meets" as statements? Otherwise, SBVR is saying that expressions that look like statements are not statements if they do not represent meanings that are either true or false. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: Don Baisley To: Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, "juergen@omg.org" Cc: "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Date: 05/20/2011 05:41 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition SBVR's definition of 'statement' is "representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition". In Mark's email below, Mark is either using a non-SBVR concept of 'statement' or, using SBVR's concept, he is saying that a representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition does not necessarily express a proposition. Regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 1:08 PM To: juergen@omg.org Cc: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: A statement may express no proposition In clause 8.3.3, in the glossary entry for "statement", SBVR has the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition ". This Necessity is also shown in figure 8.4 and is cited as an example on printed page 6. The issue is that some statements do not express propositions (i.e. a meaning that is true or false, per the definition of 'proposition' in 8.1.2). There are at least two types of statements that are neither true nor false: (a) paradoxes, such as "This statement is false"; (b) atemporal statements used with temporal worlds. For example, the statement "the board of director meets" is a proposition (i.e. either true or false) in an atemporal world (i.e.a world that only contains facts about one moment in time). But in a world that has records of multiple meetings of the board of directors, the statement is ambiguous. It can be understood as true if read as meaning "the board of directors meets at some time". It is either true or false (according to the facts in the world) if it is read as "the board of directors meets right now". Clearly a statement does not express a proposition when the statement is paradoxical or ambiguous. Suggested resolution: Revise the Necessity to read "Each statement expresses at most one proposition." Revise the figure and the example to match. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: Don Baisley To: Mark H Linehan , "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition Thread-Topic: A statement may express no proposition Thread-Index: AQHMFym4uW8FjYuRqUm2c2Lbj4rEGpSWPDrggACZ5oD//8+eYA== Date: Sat, 21 May 2011 04:04:17 +0000 Accept-Language: en-US X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: x-originating-ip: [157.54.51.75] X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by amethyst.omg.org id p4L3wQDw019062 Mark, SBVR's concept of 'statement' works perfectly well for business semantics. SBVR also does not allow that a statement have two meanings. 'Statement' is not a synonym of 'sentence'. A sentence can have two meanings. A sentence can have no meaning. You can take your argument from the representation perspective to the meaning perspective by considering this example that is similar to your example: "This proposition is false". If that sentence has a meaning and the meaning is true or false, then the meaning is a proposition (according to SBVR's definition of 'proposition'). But I would not use that example to argue that the definition of 'proposition' is wrong. I would rather discuss useful meanings and kinds of meanings that have business purpose. Best regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 4:42 PM To: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition Then there's something wrong with the definition of "statement". Would we not consider "this statement is false" and "the board of directors meets" as statements? Otherwise, SBVR is saying that expressions that look like statements are not statements if they do not represent meanings that are either true or false. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: Don Baisley To: Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, "juergen@omg.org" Cc: "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Date: 05/20/2011 05:41 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition SBVR's definition of 'statement' is "representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition". In Mark's email below, Mark is either using a non-SBVR concept of 'statement' or, using SBVR's concept, he is saying that a representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition does not necessarily express a proposition. Regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 1:08 PM To: juergen@omg.org Cc: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: A statement may express no proposition In clause 8.3.3, in the glossary entry for "statement", SBVR has the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition ". This Necessity is also shown in figure 8.4 and is cited as an example on printed page 6. The issue is that some statements do not express propositions (i.e. a meaning that is true or false, per the definition of 'proposition' in 8.1.2). There are at least two types of statements that are neither true nor false: (a) paradoxes, such as "This statement is false"; (b) atemporal statements used with temporal worlds. For example, the statement "the board of director meets" is a proposition (i.e. either true or false) in an atemporal world (i.e.a world that only contains facts about one moment in time). But in a world that has records of multiple meetings of the board of directors, the statement is ambiguous. It can be understood as true if read as meaning "the board of directors meets at some time". It is either true or false (according to the facts in the world) if it is read as "the board of directors meets right now". Clearly a statement does not express a proposition when the statement is paradoxical or ambiguous. Suggested resolution: Revise the Necessity to read "Each statement expresses at most one proposition." Revise the figure and the example to match. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research X-Yahoo-Newman-Id: 762568.18699.bm@omp1020.access.mail.sp2.yahoo.com DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=yahoo.com; s=s1024; t=1306020827; bh=Ci/Ui78IAM1bTZ/H8a2m8JQt5zDcdJ/mBbTtzzAV6PQ=; h=Message-ID:Received:X-Yahoo-SMTP:X-YMail-OSG:X-Yahoo-Newman-Property:X-Mailer:Date:To:From:Subject:In-Reply-To:References:Mime-Version:Content-Type; b=Ti9TrFrHMpNTMI18cJG3j/FyqipLUivBX836WpQR9/4Q8degYyd1s9+KkCmU7Dkz2EgGcUyxfZwwRqZUIf5h6P3RYZjmsY0jc8rXD3t6g9uGIrnqgRhSfyZpy0VKGjSav4UK0Y6gOOYgG14LM41R0WM3s2yur+R2+l85yOp4ztE= X-Yahoo-SMTP: MhfrpU2swBDLgYiYhNQDHBu0cE4o.vu2We1FRN9o X-YMail-OSG: 5w6DDoEVM1nlHsFXFjDpn34TZO097YmUPzHPjU8QWgGrAsK 4aCJH3C_bYOtH_3z2MwWEuzAhn_UoXViwtxv0O4lEAtHpSzDr2fbPwNfniQF we2gXE3douwsZuYDv7K3knIfRfwCJJ3hNPciHgCeBJjw.sN0h8ZYf6lpEmtQ OoAiDrsHdQkGe7AwPEPc_p3MdSxQXE1xJjpDPnGpfa2ZzZAgSKsbGnGc4Xbw qjhVMf8YbCdVP__hg2GXDuSdl1kARxLzUVG5O0fsOOIfTMNdMtoFvJkUql9M pNq9lr6LUTTA4K2yFhKSO8TT04JF5uII5ff_JIN4tkWbgsw-- X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: ymail-3 X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 7.1.0.9 Date: Sat, 21 May 2011 18:33:26 -0500 To: Don Baisley , Mark H Linehan , "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" From: "Ronald G. Ross" Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition A couple of quick comments: At 11:04 PM 5/20/2011, Don Baisley wrote: Mark, SBVR's concept of 'statement' works perfectly well for business semantics. SBVR also does not allow that a statement have two meanings. 'Statement' is not a synonym of 'sentence'. A sentence can have two meanings. A sentence can have no meaning. You can take your argument from the representation perspective to the meaning perspective by considering this example that is similar to your example: "This proposition is false". If that sentence has a meaning and the meaning is true or false, then the meaning is a proposition (according to SBVR's definition of 'proposition'). But I would not use that example to argue that the definition of 'proposition' is wrong. I would rather discuss useful meanings and kinds of meanings that have business purpose. Agree. I have never seen a (true) business rule that refers to itself. Anyway, if I did write the statement as a business rule, it might be something like: Both of the following are always true for this business rule: * It is true. * It is false. Wouldn't that simply be a (detectable) conflict? Perhaps we should amend the Accommodation Principle slightly by inserting "(or itself)": 12.3.2 The Accommodation Principle Principle: An element of guidance whose meaning conflicts with some other element(s) of guidance ***(or itself)*** must be taken that way; if no conflict is intended, the element(s) of guidance must be expressed in such a way as to avoid the conflict. Thoughts? [Additional comment below.] Best regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [ mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 4:42 PM To: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition Then there's something wrong with the definition of "statement". Would we not consider "this statement is false" and "the board of directors meets" as statements? Why couldn't the statement "the board of directors meets" simply be taken as ambiguous considering the temporal aspect? I would think that's the sort of thing SBVR tools should help people sort out. "Did you mean this ... or did you mean this?" SBVR can't do magic. People write ambiguous things(!). Ron Otherwise, SBVR is saying that expressions that look like statements are not statements if they do not represent meanings that are either true or false. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: Don Baisley To: Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, "juergen@omg.org" Cc: "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Date: 05/20/2011 05:41 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition SBVR's definition of 'statement' is "representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition". In Mark's email below, Mark is either using a non-SBVR concept of 'statement' or, using SBVR's concept, he is saying that a representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition does not necessarily express a proposition. Regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [ mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 1:08 PM To: juergen@omg.org Cc: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: A statement may express no proposition In clause 8.3.3, in the glossary entry for "statement", SBVR has the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition ". This Necessity is also shown in figure 8.4 and is cited as an example on printed page 6. The issue is that some statements do not express propositions (i.e. a meaning that is true or false, per the definition of 'proposition' in 8.1.2). There are at least two types of statements that are neither true nor false: (a) paradoxes, such as "This statement is false"; (b) atemporal statements used with temporal worlds. For example, the statement "the board of director meets" is a proposition (i.e. either true or false) in an atemporal world (i.e.a world that only contains facts about one moment in time). But in a world that has records of multiple meetings of the board of directors, the statement is ambiguous. It can be understood as true if read as meaning "the board of directors meets at some time". It is either true or false (according to the facts in the world) if it is read as "the board of directors meets right now". Clearly a statement does not express a proposition when the statement is paradoxical or ambiguous. Suggested resolution: Revise the Necessity to read "Each statement expresses at most one proposition." Revise the figure and the example to match. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research Date: Tue, 24 May 2011 15:05:34 -0400 From: Ed Barkmeyer Reply-To: edbark@nist.gov Organization: NIST User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (Windows/20090812) To: "Ronald G. Ross" CC: Mark H Linehan , "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Subject: Re: A statement may express no proposition X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-Information: Please contact postmaster@mel.nist.gov for more information X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-ID: p4OJ5dAT017340 X-NISTMEL-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-SpamCheck: X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-From: edbark@nist.gov X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-Watermark: 1306868744.06976@/waiabvkoI0xg8DnJNcL5Q X-Spam-Status: No X-NIST-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-NIST-MailScanner-From: edbark@nist.gov Ronald G. Ross wrote: At 08:05 PM 5/22/2011, Mark H Linehan wrote: So if I understand Don correctly, a sentence is a statement only if it is a logical proposition. That is, you can't tell from the expression itself whether a sentence is a statement. Instead, you have to figure out whether its meaning is limited to "true" and "false". If so, then the sentence is a proposition. Is that correct? *[Defer to others.] * Regarding my example "the board of director meets", the concern here is that in a temporal model EVERY sentence will be ambiguous if not labeled with a time reference. It seems quite a burden to make the user specify the time of all propositions. *In the following two rules where is the need for labeling with a time reference? You have to assume "at all times" unless the rule itself says differently (Wholeness Principle). * A hard hat must be worn in a construction site. * It is impossible that a bird has hair. * Thank you, Ron. I am glad someone else thinks that the implicit time frame is "always" (all time of interest) and not "now". I can't tell you how many hours this red herring has wasted. Also, the negation of "A hard hat must be worn (always)" is not "A hard hat must not be worn (ever)", it is "A hard hat need not always be worn". The problem that we have is: "A bird is on the nest in our oak tree" may be true at multiple times and false at others. If it means "Some bird is always on the nest" or "A bird is on the nest now", it doesn't make a useful 'state of affairs' to plug into 'state of affairs occurs at time'. We need a third meaning that just means the event of a bird sitting on the nest without regard to time. -Ed *Ron * -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: "Ronald G. Ross" To: Don Baisley , Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Date: 05/21/2011 07:33 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition A couple of quick comments: At 11:04 PM 5/20/2011, Don Baisley wrote: Mark, SBVR's concept of 'statement' works perfectly well for business semantics. SBVR also does not allow that a statement have two meanings. 'Statement' is not a synonym of 'sentence'. A sentence can have two meanings. A sentence can have no meaning. You can take your argument from the representation perspective to the meaning perspective by considering this example that is similar to your example: "This proposition is false". If that sentence has a meaning and the meaning is true or false, then the meaning is a proposition (according to SBVR's definition of 'proposition'). But I would not use that example to argue that the definition of 'proposition' is wrong. I would rather discuss useful meanings and kinds of meanings that have business purpose. Agree. I have never seen a (true) business rule that refers to itself. Anyway, if I did write the statement as a business rule, it might be something like: Both of the following are always true for this business rule: * It is true. * It is false. Wouldn't that simply be a (detectable) conflict? Perhaps we should amend the Accommodation Principle slightly by inserting "(or itself)": 12.3.2 The Accommodation Principle Principle: An element of guidance whose meaning conflicts with some other element(s) of guidance ***(or itself)*** must be taken that way; if no conflict is intended, the element(s) of guidance must be expressed in such a way as to avoid the conflict. Thoughts? [Additional comment below.] Best regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [ mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 4:42 PM To: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition Then there's something wrong with the definition of "statement". Would we not consider "this statement is false" and "the board of directors meets" as statements? Why couldn't the statement "the board of directors meets" simply be taken as ambiguous considering the temporal aspect? I would think that's the sort of thing SBVR tools should help people sort out. "Did you mean this ... or did you mean this?" SBVR can't do magic. People write ambiguous things(!). Ron Otherwise, SBVR is saying that expressions that look like statements are not statements if they do not represent meanings that are either true or false. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: Don Baisley To: Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, "juergen@omg.org" Cc: "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Date: 05/20/2011 05:41 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition SBVR's definition of 'statement' is "representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition". In Mark's email below, Mark is either using a non-SBVR concept of 'statement' or, using SBVR's concept, he is saying that a representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition does not necessarily express a proposition. Regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [ mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 1:08 PM To: juergen@omg.org Cc: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: A statement may express no proposition In clause 8.3.3, in the glossary entry for "statement", SBVR has the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition ". This Necessity is also shown in figure 8.4 and is cited as an example on printed page 6. The issue is that some statements do not express propositions (i.e. a meaning that is true or false, per the definition of 'proposition' in 8.1.2). There are at least two types of statements that are neither true nor false: (a) paradoxes, such as "This statement is false"; (b) atemporal statements used with temporal worlds. For example, the statement "the board of director meets" is a proposition (i.e. either true or false) in an atemporal world (i.e.a world that only contains facts about one moment in time). But in a world that has records of multiple meetings of the board of directors, the statement is ambiguous. It can be understood as true if read as meaning "the board of directors meets at some time". It is either true or false (according to the facts in the world) if it is read as "the board of directors meets right now". Clearly a statement does not express a proposition when the statement is paradoxical or ambiguous. Suggested resolution: Revise the Necessity to read "Each statement expresses at most one proposition." Revise the figure and the example to match. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research -- Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@nist.gov National Institute of Standards & Technology Manufacturing Systems Integration Division 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 Cel: +1 240-672-5800 "The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST, and have not been reviewed by any Government authority." X-Yahoo-Newman-Id: 426201.66996.bm@omp1005.access.mail.mud.yahoo.com DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=yahoo.com; s=s1024; t=1306273188; bh=FVaomZfutwKonPJfXJbakXeJ1uCotMVRc1+4+Ihk3o4=; h=Message-ID:Received:X-Yahoo-SMTP:X-YMail-OSG:X-Yahoo-Newman-Property:X-Mailer:Date:To:From:Subject:Cc:In-Reply-To:References:Mime-Version:Content-Type; b=ysKdEvV7CKTZqmbnmJ4TYlJmXa7lWuqp5wFOLV8kmSlRUZj8ERhcNtkRjMeXd0Gu41aUb4Pp4/J80NmIVa+ppsrY9aiGrn1TIn5cc4z8GfqAnC6B7W60esuEGNt33LXBCfR0GcD4bjJfzGrozOaqmnbmgY/D5H6gjX+QgMlDXgk= X-Yahoo-SMTP: MhfrpU2swBDLgYiYhNQDHBu0cE4o.vu2We1FRN9o X-YMail-OSG: ZffRQtwVM1mppIwsIOqf48.wVIzVW8kyKJLV95a_5LLAKH3 OXavU388Y48tJ.1_ahdu3iRnqdygTaP5sLQdBn.cyNU3UXhsFD0bXQfwHOqL cifBs8Sjb.fCtDO98gjahiOhCyv7QHJwhdPhFEdQwpAG1vqmLvEgzJmxdJ2O iciOmKj9OWyT0UXnHS0.Y70vf2V.R0dcZn5zLAWNJWBR0xhW06VJyKQTv_uO T26Sn2TjjDyyJIom45Ds96miH5lXfMBE_opdXiKGG6xk_dpTOFfHLSPNrG6m XFeHso704tGL_jQS9gaaJ.cOjzrjyQOGUH4Rpd8487FLxTQ-- X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: ymail-3 X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 7.1.0.9 Date: Tue, 24 May 2011 16:39:40 -0500 To: edbark@nist.gov From: "Ronald G. Ross" Subject: Re: A statement may express no proposition Cc: Mark H Linehan , "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" At 02:05 PM 5/24/2011, Ed Barkmeyer wrote: Ronald G. Ross wrote: At 08:05 PM 5/22/2011, Mark H Linehan wrote: So if I understand Don correctly, a sentence is a statement only if it is a logical proposition. That is, you can't tell from the expression itself whether a sentence is a statement. Instead, you have to figure out whether its meaning is limited to "true" and "false". If so, then the sentence is a proposition. Is that correct? *[Defer to others.] * Regarding my example "the board of director meets", the concern here is that in a temporal model EVERY sentence will be ambiguous if not labeled with a time reference. It seems quite a burden to make the user specify the time of all propositions. *In the following two rules where is the need for labeling with a time reference? You have to assume "at all times" unless the rule itself says differently (Wholeness Principle). * A hard hat must be worn in a construction site. * It is impossible that a bird has hair. * Thank you, Ron. I am glad someone else thinks that the implicit time frame is "always" (all time of interest) and not "now". I can't tell you how many hours this red herring has wasted. >>That's the only thing in practice that makes sense for business rules. Also, the negation of "A hard hat must be worn (always)" is not "A hard hat must not be worn (ever)", it is "A hard hat need not always be worn". >>"Need not" is a RuleSpeak keyword for expressing a permission statement. So if you're *not* making a rule that a hard hat must be worn, then you're giving permission for a hard hat *not* being worn. That's the opposite of a rule ... it's an advice or non-rule. SBVR assumes a 'light world' (everything is permitted unless explicitly prohibited), so permissions (advices, non-rules) need not be stated explicitly (unless you want to *force* a deliberate conflict if someone writes a rule that hard hats must be worn). The problem that we have is: "A bird is on the nest in our oak tree" may be true at multiple times and false at others. If it means "Some bird is always on the nest" or "A bird is on the nest now", it doesn't make a useful 'state of affairs' to plug into 'state of affairs occurs at time'. We need a third meaning that just means the event of a bird sitting on the nest without regard to time. Perhaps it's just the example, but FWIW ... For the case: "Some bird is always on the nest" ... RuleSpeak takes "always" as a keyword for a definitional rule. So if you mean *by definition* a bird is [always] on the nest in our oak tree, my take is that it would be a rule (a necessity), not a fact ... sorta like e.g., my wife is always right even when she's not. For the case: "A bird is on the nest now" ... that could be a unary fact type: e.g., nest currently has bird sitting in it. For the case: "A bird is on the nest in our oak tree" may be true at multiple times and false at others" ... that requires creation of a new general concept in the vocabulary: e.g., "bird sitting on the nest" ... or "sitting" which could have multiple instances (over time). So I'm missing why there is even a formal problem, given that we already have constructs to address the issue from a business point of view(?). Ron -Ed *Ron * -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: "Ronald G. Ross" To: Don Baisley , Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Date: 05/21/2011 07:33 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition A couple of quick comments: At 11:04 PM 5/20/2011, Don Baisley wrote: Mark, SBVR's concept of 'statement' works perfectly well for business semantics. SBVR also does not allow that a statement have two meanings. 'Statement' is not a synonym of 'sentence'. A sentence can have two meanings. A sentence can have no meaning. You can take your argument from the representation perspective to the meaning perspective by considering this example that is similar to your example: "This proposition is false". If that sentence has a meaning and the meaning is true or false, then the meaning is a proposition (according to SBVR's definition of 'proposition'). But I would not use that example to argue that the definition of 'proposition' is wrong. I would rather discuss useful meanings and kinds of meanings that have business purpose. Agree. I have never seen a (true) business rule that refers to itself. Anyway, if I did write the statement as a business rule, it might be something like: Both of the following are always true for this business rule: * It is true. * It is false. Wouldn't that simply be a (detectable) conflict? Perhaps we should amend the Accommodation Principle slightly by inserting "(or itself)": 12.3.2 The Accommodation Principle Principle: An element of guidance whose meaning conflicts with some other element(s) of guidance ***(or itself)*** must be taken that way; if no conflict is intended, the element(s) of guidance must be expressed in such a way as to avoid the conflict. Thoughts? [Additional comment below.] Best regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [ mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 4:42 PM To: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition Then there's something wrong with the definition of "statement". Would we not consider "this statement is false" and "the board of directors meets" as statements? Why couldn't the statement "the board of directors meets" simply be taken as ambiguous considering the temporal aspect? I would think that's the sort of thing SBVR tools should help people sort out. "Did you mean this ... or did you mean this?" SBVR can't do magic. People write ambiguous things(!). Ron Otherwise, SBVR is saying that expressions that look like statements are not statements if they do not represent meanings that are either true or false. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: Don Baisley To: Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, "juergen@omg.org" Cc: "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Date: 05/20/2011 05:41 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition SBVR's definition of 'statement' is "representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition". In Mark's email below, Mark is either using a non-SBVR concept of 'statement' or, using SBVR's concept, he is saying that a representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition does not necessarily express a proposition. Regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [ mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 1:08 PM To: juergen@omg.org Cc: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: A statement may express no proposition In clause 8.3.3, in the glossary entry for "statement", SBVR has the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition ". This Necessity is also shown in figure 8.4 and is cited as an example on printed page 6. The issue is that some statements do not express propositions (i.e. a meaning that is true or false, per the definition of 'proposition' in 8.1.2). There are at least two types of statements that are neither true nor false: (a) paradoxes, such as "This statement is false"; (b) atemporal statements used with temporal worlds. For example, the statement "the board of director meets" is a proposition (i.e. either true or false) in an atemporal world (i.e.a world that only contains facts about one moment in time). But in a world that has records of multiple meetings of the board of directors, the statement is ambiguous. It can be understood as true if read as meaning "the board of directors meets at some time". It is either true or false (according to the facts in the world) if it is read as "the board of directors meets right now". Clearly a statement does not express a proposition when the statement is paradoxical or ambiguous. Suggested resolution: Revise the Necessity to read "Each statement expresses at most one proposition." Revise the figure and the example to match. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research -- Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@nist.gov National Institute of Standards & Technology Manufacturing Systems Integration Division 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 Cel: +1 240-672-5800 "The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST, and have not been reviewed by any Government authority." Date: Tue, 24 May 2011 18:37:28 -0400 From: Edward Barkmeyer Reply-To: edbark@nist.gov Organization: NIST User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (Windows/20090812) To: "Ronald G. Ross" CC: Mark H Linehan , "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Subject: Re: A statement may express no proposition X-NIST-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-NIST-MailScanner-From: edward.barkmeyer@nist.gov Ronald G. Ross wrote: *For the case: "A bird is on the nest in our oak tree" may be true at multiple times and false at others" ... that requires creation of a new general concept in the vocabulary: e.g., "bird sitting on the nest" ... or "sitting" which could have multiple instances (over time). * Ah Ron, we need you on the Date/Time team! This is the position that Mark and I have taken, and that Don opposes with his 'state of affairs' that has multiple occurrences of the bird sitting in the oak tree (even though there is no such fact type as 'state of affairs1 occurs as state of affairs2' in SBVR). The idea that this is a concept is also the position that John Hall offered to the RTF and Don rejected. *So I'm missing why there is even a formal problem, given that we already have constructs to address the issue from a business point of view(?). * The problem is that we don't in SBVR have a formal way of relating the sentence *"A bird is on the nest in our oak tree" * to a concept. Technically, I think we do -- we have to agree that it is a definition of, or a signifier for, the 'sitting' concept. And it would have been nice to have a term for concepts like this, because their instances are 'actualities' (I think), but they are not propositions and they don't seem to be fact types, because they don't have fact type forms (or perhaps they just don't have any roles). We introduce that term in Date/time: occurrence type. Finally, clause 9 does not have an operation that converts a closed logical formulation of this kind to a concept; it is always interpreted as a proposition, or as a 'state of affairs' (which we have been repeatedly told is not a concept). That is where we are, and it has cost us a pretty penny to reach this impasse. Thanks, -Ed * Ron * -Ed *Ron * -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: "Ronald G. Ross" To: Don Baisley , Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Date: 05/21/2011 07:33 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition A couple of quick comments: At 11:04 PM 5/20/2011, Don Baisley wrote: Mark, SBVR's concept of 'statement' works perfectly well for business semantics. SBVR also does not allow that a statement have two meanings. 'Statement' is not a synonym of 'sentence'. A sentence can have two meanings. A sentence can have no meaning. You can take your argument from the representation perspective to the meaning perspective by considering this example that is similar to your example: "This proposition is false". If that sentence has a meaning and the meaning is true or false, then the meaning is a proposition (according to SBVR's definition of 'proposition'). But I would not use that example to argue that the definition of 'proposition' is wrong. I would rather discuss useful meanings and kinds of meanings that have business purpose. Agree. I have never seen a (true) business rule that refers to itself. Anyway, if I did write the statement as a business rule, it might be something like: Both of the following are always true for this business rule: * It is true. * It is false. Wouldn't that simply be a (detectable) conflict? Perhaps we should amend the Accommodation Principle slightly by inserting "(or itself)": 12.3.2 The Accommodation Principle Principle: An element of guidance whose meaning conflicts with some other element(s) of guidance ***(or itself)*** must be taken that way; if no conflict is intended, the element(s) of guidance must be expressed in such a way as to avoid the conflict. Thoughts? [Additional comment below.] Best regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [ mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 4:42 PM To: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition Then there's something wrong with the definition of "statement". Would we not consider "this statement is false" and "the board of directors meets" as statements? Why couldn't the statement "the board of directors meets" simply be taken as ambiguous considering the temporal aspect? I would think that's the sort of thing SBVR tools should help people sort out. "Did you mean this ... or did you mean this?" SBVR can't do magic. People write ambiguous things(!). Ron Otherwise, SBVR is saying that expressions that look like statements are not statements if they do not represent meanings that are either true or false. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: Don Baisley To: Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, "juergen@omg.org" Cc: "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Date: 05/20/2011 05:41 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition SBVR's definition of 'statement' is "representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition". In Mark's email below, Mark is either using a non-SBVR concept of 'statement' or, using SBVR's concept, he is saying that a representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition does not necessarily express a proposition. Regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [ mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 1:08 PM To: juergen@omg.org Cc: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: A statement may express no proposition In clause 8.3.3, in the glossary entry for "statement", SBVR has the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition ". This Necessity is also shown in figure 8.4 and is cited as an example on printed page 6. The issue is that some statements do not express propositions (i.e. a meaning that is true or false, per the definition of 'proposition' in 8.1.2). There are at least two types of statements that are neither true nor false: (a) paradoxes, such as "This statement is false"; (b) atemporal statements used with temporal worlds. For example, the statement "the board of director meets" is a proposition (i.e. either true or false) in an atemporal world (i.e.a world that only contains facts about one moment in time). But in a world that has records of multiple meetings of the board of directors, the statement is ambiguous. It can be understood as true if read as meaning "the board of directors meets at some time". It is either true or false (according to the facts in the world) if it is read as "the board of directors meets right now". Clearly a statement does not express a proposition when the statement is paradoxical or ambiguous. Suggested resolution: Revise the Necessity to read "Each statement expresses at most one proposition." Revise the figure and the example to match. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research -- Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@nist.gov National Institute of Standards & Technology Manufacturing Systems Integration Division 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 Cel: +1 240-672-5800 "The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST, and have not been reviewed by any Government authority." -- Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@nist.gov National Institute of Standards & Technology Manufacturing Systems Integration Division 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 Cel: +1 240-672-5800 "The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST, and have not been reviewed by any Government authority." X-Yahoo-Newman-Id: 301476.14888.bm@omp1015.access.mail.sp2.yahoo.com DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=yahoo.com; s=s1024; t=1306284052; bh=ndYGIuU/vfn5T37/fZ96b+/cr2AikpRnUXRx8eBCO6M=; h=Message-ID:Received:X-Yahoo-SMTP:X-YMail-OSG:X-Yahoo-Newman-Property:X-Mailer:Date:To:From:Subject:Cc:In-Reply-To:References:Mime-Version:Content-Type; b=jJ1drH8uXlYTkIYUzsbR9Aj/eVWHHS5/dHu/fvlbA4ylq3paH24zggmZ0WLmxP95sldPAWK1Zjb/wmohMTvuyY3p8rLNZDubfOSOvFK5c8TkvfZgBz2+sI7qAVQQ1m841oHHxuBr3I7vJ/YY9lvM5UC0Hl/28JegJ5vjFjFkpWw= X-Yahoo-SMTP: MhfrpU2swBDLgYiYhNQDHBu0cE4o.vu2We1FRN9o X-YMail-OSG: z1RG_jgVM1lcsmUHhaaQY1neinK_MFKRvIhXbHueLaJ_6hi HwOz42jUqPSdlp8mYPD_MHzADCfEiyiRBR7Op_KuP3wk6cgwIAsGufuw54uk valhpUINlc3Q4eBBjkX.PolNZa14obe9ZxB1flHtfXt.8EBvuYpgDCvkOHr8 GgjIsFJv4q7.egwCDQ33o3QMuemDrxRu5oJW9hat45dp3RvxMnAi3l1kvXab QIJjZI5UchxABLGNWmXbrXAIR4tpmUI9d7oO0AN2GySDjgX0a3ezYSX324u4 rNtY6VloORspWi5tckCr2rM3q4x8hTkQEaj4t2rpqAIpP4LVBfFeG56hvNQo - X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: ymail-3 X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 7.1.0.9 Date: Tue, 24 May 2011 19:40:43 -0500 To: edbark@nist.gov From: "Ronald G. Ross" Subject: Re: A statement may express no proposition Cc: Mark H Linehan , "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" At 05:37 PM 5/24/2011, Edward Barkmeyer wrote: Ronald G. Ross wrote: *For the case: "A bird is on the nest in our oak tree" may be true at multiple times and false at others" ... that requires creation of a new general concept in the vocabulary: e.g., "bird sitting on the nest" ... or "sitting" which could have multiple instances (over time). * Ah Ron, we need you on the Date/Time team! This is the position that Mark and I have taken, and that Don opposes with his 'state of affairs' that has multiple occurrences of the bird sitting in the oak tree (even though there is no such fact type as 'state of affairs1 occurs as state of affairs2' in SBVR). The idea that this is a concept is also the position that John Hall offered to the RTF and Don rejected. *So I'm missing why there is even a formal problem, given that we already have constructs to address the issue from a business point of view(?). * The problem is that we don't in SBVR have a formal way of relating the sentence *"A bird is on the nest in our oak tree" * to a concept. Technically, I think we do -- we have to agree that it is a definition of, or a signifier for, the 'sitting' concept. And it would have been nice to have a term for concepts like this, Actually, I think we do, or almost do, in SBVR 11.1.4 (I don't know what firestorm I may be raising here). Of course it all depends on how "at a point in time" is understood in the definition. concept of thing as occurrent Definition: concept that conceptualizes its instances as existing only at a point in time Dictionary Basis: the fact of something existing or being found in a place or under a particular set of conditions [NODE occurrence2] + the fact or frequency of something happening [NODE occurrence1] because their instances are 'actualities' (I think), but they are not propositions and they don't seem to be fact types, I assume you don't care which bird is doing which 'sitting'. because they don't have fact type forms (or perhaps they just don't have any roles). Ditto. We introduce that term in Date/time: occurrence type. Sorry, too wonky for mere mortals. Aren't you talking about any concept that corresponds to a thing in the real world (let's say) that has the property "potentially happens a lot" (reoccuring)? Finally, clause 9 does not have an operation that converts a closed logical formulation of this kind to a concept; it is always interpreted as a proposition, or as a 'state of affairs' (which we have been repeatedly told is not a concept). That is where we are, and it has cost us a pretty penny to reach this impasse. I would like to think that if my understanding of the concept from 11.1.4 is basically correct, that SBVR *could* support it. SBVR *better* support it(!). But I can't speak technically as to why concepts of this ilk cause any special problems for SBVR(?). In over my head. Ron Thanks, -Ed * Ron * -Ed *Ron * -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: "Ronald G. Ross" To: Don Baisley , Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Date: 05/21/2011 07:33 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition A couple of quick comments: At 11:04 PM 5/20/2011, Don Baisley wrote: Mark, SBVR's concept of 'statement' works perfectly well for business semantics. SBVR also does not allow that a statement have two meanings. 'Statement' is not a synonym of 'sentence'. A sentence can have two meanings. A sentence can have no meaning. You can take your argument from the representation perspective to the meaning perspective by considering this example that is similar to your example: "This proposition is false". If that sentence has a meaning and the meaning is true or false, then the meaning is a proposition (according to SBVR's definition of 'proposition'). But I would not use that example to argue that the definition of 'proposition' is wrong. I would rather discuss useful meanings and kinds of meanings that have business purpose. Agree. I have never seen a (true) business rule that refers to itself. Anyway, if I did write the statement as a business rule, it might be something like: Both of the following are always true for this business rule: * It is true. * It is false. Wouldn't that simply be a (detectable) conflict? Perhaps we should amend the Accommodation Principle slightly by inserting "(or itself)": 12.3.2 The Accommodation Principle Principle: An element of guidance whose meaning conflicts with some other element(s) of guidance ***(or itself)*** must be taken that way; if no conflict is intended, the element(s) of guidance must be expressed in such a way as to avoid the conflict. Thoughts? [Additional comment below.] Best regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [ mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 4:42 PM To: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition Then there's something wrong with the definition of "statement". Would we not consider "this statement is false" and "the board of directors meets" as statements? Why couldn't the statement "the board of directors meets" simply be taken as ambiguous considering the temporal aspect? I would think that's the sort of thing SBVR tools should help people sort out. "Did you mean this ... or did you mean this?" SBVR can't do magic. People write ambiguous things(!). Ron Otherwise, SBVR is saying that expressions that look like statements are not statements if they do not represent meanings that are either true or false. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: Don Baisley To: Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, "juergen@omg.org" Cc: "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Date: 05/20/2011 05:41 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition SBVR's definition of 'statement' is "representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition". In Mark's email below, Mark is either using a non-SBVR concept of 'statement' or, using SBVR's concept, he is saying that a representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition does not necessarily express a proposition. Regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [ mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 1:08 PM To: juergen@omg.org Cc: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: A statement may express no proposition In clause 8.3.3, in the glossary entry for "statement", SBVR has the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition ". This Necessity is also shown in figure 8.4 and is cited as an example on printed page 6. The issue is that some statements do not express propositions (i.e. a meaning that is true or false, per the definition of 'proposition' in 8.1.2). There are at least two types of statements that are neither true nor false: (a) paradoxes, such as "This statement is false"; (b) atemporal statements used with temporal worlds. For example, the statement "the board of director meets" is a proposition (i.e. either true or false) in an atemporal world (i.e.a world that only contains facts about one moment in time). But in a world that has records of multiple meetings of the board of directors, the statement is ambiguous. It can be understood as true if read as meaning "the board of directors meets at some time". It is either true or false (according to the facts in the world) if it is read as "the board of directors meets right now". Clearly a statement does not express a proposition when the statement is paradoxical or ambiguous. Suggested resolution: Revise the Necessity to read "Each statement expresses at most one proposition." Revise the figure and the example to match. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research -- Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@nist.gov National Institute of Standards & Technology Manufacturing Systems Integration Division 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 Cel: +1 240-672-5800 "The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST, and have not been reviewed by any Government authority." -- Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@nist.gov National Institute of Standards & Technology Manufacturing Systems Integration Division 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 Cel: +1 240-672-5800 "The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST, and have not been reviewed by any Government authority." Subject: Re: A statement may express no proposition X-KeepSent: 36B125B9:77C16F37-8525789B:00482616; type=4; name=$KeepSent To: sbvr-rtf@omg.org X-Mailer: Lotus Notes Release 8.5.1FP5 SHF29 November 12, 2010 From: Mark H Linehan Date: Wed, 25 May 2011 14:19:14 -0400 X-MIMETrack: Serialize by Router on D01MC604/01/M/IBM(Release 8.5.2FP1 ZX852FP1HF6|May 2, 2011) at 05/25/2011 14:19:18 X-MIME-Autoconverted: from base64 to 8bit by amethyst.omg.org id p4PIDGMB029558 Hmm, I have never paid any attention to that section of the document. But I don't think that the definition "concept that conceptualizes its instances as existing only at a point in time " quite matches what we mean. "Bird sitting" defined as "a bird is on the nest in our oak tree" is not conceptualized as existing at a point in time. It is conceptualized in terms of birds, sitting, nests, etc. Such a concept certainly has a relationship to time, but that is secondary to the main concept. The SBVR concepts "occurrent" and "continuant" sound like the branches of philosophy called "perdurantism" and "endurantism". That's a whole 'nother ball of wax. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: "Ronald G. Ross" To: edbark@nist.gov Cc: Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Date: 05/24/2011 08:43 PM Subject: Re: A statement may express no proposition At 05:37 PM 5/24/2011, Edward Barkmeyer wrote: Ronald G. Ross wrote: *For the case: "A bird is on the nest in our oak tree" may be true at multiple times and false at others" ... that requires creation of a new general concept in the vocabulary: e.g., "bird sitting on the nest" ... or "sitting" which could have multiple instances (over time). * Ah Ron, we need you on the Date/Time team! This is the position that Mark and I have taken, and that Don opposes with his 'state of affairs' that has multiple occurrences of the bird sitting in the oak tree (even though there is no such fact type as 'state of affairs1 occurs as state of affairs2' in SBVR). The idea that this is a concept is also the position that John Hall offered to the RTF and Don rejected. *So I'm missing why there is even a formal problem, given that we already have constructs to address the issue from a business point of view(?). * The problem is that we don't in SBVR have a formal way of relating the sentence *"A bird is on the nest in our oak tree" * to a concept. Technically, I think we do -- we have to agree that it is a definition of, or a signifier for, the 'sitting' concept. And it would have been nice to have a term for concepts like this, Actually, I think we do, or almost do, in SBVR 11.1.4 (I don't know what firestorm I may be raising here). Of course it all depends on how "at a point in time" is understood in the definition. concept of thing as occurrent Definition: concept that conceptualizes its instances as existing only at a point in time Dictionary Basis: the fact of something existing or being found in a place or under a particular set of conditions [NODE â..occurrenceâ.. 2] + the fact or frequency of something happening [NODE â..occurrenceâ.. 1] because their instances are 'actualities' (I think), but they are not propositions and they don't seem to be fact types, I assume you don't care which bird is doing which 'sitting'. because they don't have fact type forms (or perhaps they just don't have any roles). Ditto. We introduce that term in Date/time: occurrence type. Sorry, too wonky for mere mortals. Aren't you talking about any concept that corresponds to a thing in the real world (let's say) that has the property "potentially happens a lot" (reoccuring)? Finally, clause 9 does not have an operation that converts a closed logical formulation of this kind to a concept; it is always interpreted as a proposition, or as a 'state of affairs' (which we have been repeatedly told is not a concept). That is where we are, and it has cost us a pretty penny to reach this impasse. I would like to think that if my understanding of the concept from 11.1.4 is basically correct, that SBVR *could* support it. SBVR *better* support it(!). But I can't speak technically as to why concepts of this ilk cause any special problems for SBVR(?). In over my head. Ron Thanks, -Ed * Ron * -Ed *Ron * -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: "Ronald G. Ross" To: Don Baisley , Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Date: 05/21/2011 07:33 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition A couple of quick comments: At 11:04 PM 5/20/2011, Don Baisley wrote: Mark, SBVR's concept of 'statement' works perfectly well for business semantics. SBVR also does not allow that a statement have two meanings. 'Statement' is not a synonym of 'sentence'. A sentence can have two meanings. A sentence can have no meaning. You can take your argument from the representation perspective to the meaning perspective by considering this example that is similar to your example: "This proposition is false". If that sentence has a meaning and the meaning is true or false, then the meaning is a proposition (according to SBVR's definition of 'proposition'). But I would not use that example to argue that the definition of 'proposition' is wrong. I would rather discuss useful meanings and kinds of meanings that have business purpose. Agree. I have never seen a (true) business rule that refers to itself. Anyway, if I did write the statement as a business rule, it might be something like: Both of the following are always true for this business rule: * It is true. * It is false. Wouldn't that simply be a (detectable) conflict? Perhaps we should amend the Accommodation Principle slightly by inserting "(or itself)": 12.3.2 The Accommodation Principle Principle: An element of guidance whose meaning conflicts with some other element(s) of guidance ***(or itself)*** must be taken that way; if no conflict is intended, the element(s) of guidance must be expressed in such a way as to avoid the conflict. Thoughts? [Additional comment below.] Best regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [ mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 4:42 PM To: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition Then there's something wrong with the definition of "statement". Would we not consider "this statement is false" and "the board of directors meets" as statements? Why couldn't the statement "the board of directors meets" simply be taken as ambiguous considering the temporal aspect? I would think that's the sort of thing SBVR tools should help people sort out. "Did you mean this ... or did you mean this?" SBVR can't do magic. People write ambiguous things(!). Ron Otherwise, SBVR is saying that expressions that look like statements are not statements if they do not represent meanings that are either true or false. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: Don Baisley To: Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, "juergen@omg.org" Cc: "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Date: 05/20/2011 05:41 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition SBVR's definition of 'statement' is "representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition". In Mark's email below, Mark is either using a non-SBVR concept of 'statement' or, using SBVR's concept, he is saying that a representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition does not necessarily express a proposition. Regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [ mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 1:08 PM To: juergen@omg.org Cc: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: A statement may express no proposition In clause 8.3.3, in the glossary entry for "statement", SBVR has the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition ". This Necessity is also shown in figure 8.4 and is cited as an example on printed page 6. The issue is that some statements do not express propositions (i.e. a meaning that is true or false, per the definition of 'proposition' in 8.1.2). There are at least two types of statements that are neither true nor false: (a) paradoxes, such as "This statement is false"; (b) atemporal statements used with temporal worlds. For example, the statement "the board of director meets" is a proposition (i.e. either true or false) in an atemporal world (i.e.a world that only contains facts about one moment in time). But in a world that has records of multiple meetings of the board of directors, the statement is ambiguous. It can be understood as true if read as meaning "the board of directors meets at some time". It is either true or false (according to the facts in the world) if it is read as "the board of directors meets right now". Clearly a statement does not express a proposition when the statement is paradoxical or ambiguous. Suggested resolution: Revise the Necessity to read "Each statement expresses at most one proposition." Revise the figure and the example to match. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research -- Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@nist.gov National Institute of Standards & Technology Manufacturing Systems Integration Division 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 Cel: +1 240-672-5800 "The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST, and have not been reviewed by any Government authority." -- Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@nist.gov National Institute of Standards & Technology Manufacturing Systems Integration Division 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 Cel: +1 240-672-5800 "The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST, and have not been reviewed by any Government authority." Date: Wed, 25 May 2011 15:34:27 -0400 From: Edward Barkmeyer Reply-To: edbark@nist.gov Organization: NIST User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (Windows/20090812) To: "Ronald G. Ross" CC: "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Subject: Re: A statement may express no proposition X-NIST-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-NIST-MailScanner-From: edward.barkmeyer@nist.gov Ron, you wrote: The problem is that we don't in SBVR have a formal way of relating the sentence "A bird is on the nest in our oak tree" to a concept. Technically, I think we do -- we have to agree that it is a definition of, or a signifier for, the 'sitting' concept. And it would have been nice to have a term for concepts like this, *Actually, I think we do, or almost do, in SBVR 11.1.4 (I don't know what firestorm I may be raising here). Of course it all depends on how "at a point in time" is understood in the definition. **concept of thing as occurrent *Definition: concept that conceptualizes its instances as existing only at a point in time Dictionary Basis: the fact of something existing or being found in a place or under a particular set of conditions [NODE .occurrence. 2] + the fact or frequency of something happening [NODE .occurrence. 1] We hadn't noticed this. I think this 'occurrent' and 'continuant' dichotomy is extracted from the "4D" semantic model of time. An occurrent is a thing that has only one state and is constant for some span of time. Time is an essential property of all 'things'. A continuant is an object that has multiple states (at different times). In a typical 4D model, a continuant is a composite of distinct things, one for each of its states. It is not a thing, it is rather a common property of all its components. Alternatively, a continuant may be considered a thing whose time interval is the union of the intervals of its state things, and it has only the properties they all share (or in some views, only the property of identity). I would have said this kind of discussion is way beyond the competence or concern of any user or implementor of SBVR. Each Date/Time 'occurrence type' might be considered a 'concept of thing as occurrent', where 'thing' is narrowed to event, state, situation or circumstance. We use the term 'time interval' for 'point in time'. A date/time 'occurrence' is an instance of such a concept -- a continuous happening over a time interval. The time interval is an essential property of the occurrence. An occurrence is therefore 'occurrent'. Thus, "some bird is sitting in the oak tree", by being an 'occurrence type' implicitly characterizes its instances as occurrent. It corresponds to each situation in time in which some bird is sitting in the oak tree. because their instances are 'actualities' (I think), but they are not propositions and they don't seem to be fact types, *I assume you don't care which bird is doing which 'sitting'. * because they don't have fact type forms (or perhaps they just don't have any roles). *Ditto. * Yes, the state is 'some bird is sitting in the oak tree'. If we distinguish the occurrences by bird, then we have a fact type with a role for 'bird'. That is, the form is '_bird_ /is sitting in the oak tree/'. And that is another thing entirely. We introduce that term in Date/time: occurrence type. *Sorry, too wonky for mere mortals. Aren't you talking about any concept that corresponds to a thing in the real world (let's say) that has the property "potentially happens a lot" (reoccuring)? * See above. We mean the characterization/conceptualization of a situation that could nominally happen. Whether it can happen more than once is not important to the definition, and in fact, it could actually be impossible. We are talking about the conceptualization of a potential happening. As you pointed out earlier, whether an oxymoron is a potential happening is a purely philosophical concern, irrelevant to business use. Finally, clause 9 does not have an operation that converts a closed logical formulation of this kind to a concept; it is always interpreted as a proposition, or as a 'state of affairs' (which we have been repeatedly told is not a concept). That is where we are, and it has cost us a pretty penny to reach this impasse. *I would like to think that if my understanding of the concept from 11.1.4 is basically correct, that SBVR *could* support it. SBVR *better* support it(!). But I can't speak technically as to why concepts of this ilk cause any special problems for SBVR(?). In over my head. * The problem we have been having is that Terry's formal semantic model for "truth" in SBVR only deals with a possible world that is a snapshot in time -- a world in which things don't change state in the time of interest. For example, when you are making a business decision, you can consider the world of interest to be in stasis for the time of the decision. And in that world, when you add concepts of past and future and states that occur at some times and not at others, SBVR supports those ideas, as long as they are restricted to being things and concepts of things. The 'truth semantics' problem is that a sentence like 'a bird is sitting in the oak tree' is not a proposition in a world that covers a significant span of time. It is neither true nor false for that world. It is true at some times and false at some times. But that only means that some expressions that are sentences do not represent propositions, they represent 'concepts of event things'. Unfortunately, SBVR never mentions that possibility. And in fact, SBVR explicitly says in clause 9 that every 'closed logical formulation' (the formal model of a sentence) means a proposition. But the formulation of a sentence like 'a bird is sitting in the oak tree' does not necessarily mean a proposition -- it depends on what the time frame of the world of interest is. The other choices are that its meaning is a concept, or that it has no meaning. The idea that its meaning is a concept is useful. Finally, Don insists that a 'state of affairs' is neither the event/happening/occurrence itself, nor the 'concept of a potential event' that corresponds to it. A 'state of affairs' is "something else", that is both or neither and somehow makes these clear notions unnecessary. It is an individual event that somehow corresponds to zero or more occurrences, but it is not a 'concept of a thing as occurrent'. And unfortunately, since an 'actuality' is said to be one of these 'state of affairs' things that 'occurs' or 'is actual', those of us who are trying to relate these notions to time (or to formal logic semantics) are very confused as to what the semantic model of SBVR may be. (Don's view of the situation is that our confusion results from our lacking the intellectual insight needed to understand Terry's model. Our view of the situation, recently reinforced, is that our confusion results from Don's insistence on Don's generalization of Terry's model, which does not make sense to logicians, and would not make sense to Terry, either.) -Ed * Ron * Thanks, -Ed * Ron * -Ed *Ron * -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: "Ronald G. Ross" To: Don Baisley , Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Date: 05/21/2011 07:33 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition A couple of quick comments: At 11:04 PM 5/20/2011, Don Baisley wrote: Mark, SBVR's concept of 'statement' works perfectly well for business semantics. SBVR also does not allow that a statement have two meanings. 'Statement' is not a synonym of 'sentence'. A sentence can have two meanings. A sentence can have no meaning. You can take your argument from the representation perspective to the meaning perspective by considering this example that is similar to your example: "This proposition is false". If that sentence has a meaning and the meaning is true or false, then the meaning is a proposition (according to SBVR's definition of 'proposition'). But I would not use that example to argue that the definition of 'proposition' is wrong. I would rather discuss useful meanings and kinds of meanings that have business purpose. Agree. I have never seen a (true) business rule that refers to itself. Anyway, if I did write the statement as a business rule, it might be something like: Both of the following are always true for this business rule: * It is true. * It is false. Wouldn't that simply be a (detectable) conflict? Perhaps we should amend the Accommodation Principle slightly by inserting "(or itself)": 12.3.2 The Accommodation Principle Principle: An element of guidance whose meaning conflicts with some other element(s) of guidance ***(or itself)*** must be taken that way; if no conflict is intended, the element(s) of guidance must be expressed in such a way as to avoid the conflict. Thoughts? [Additional comment below.] Best regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [ mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 4:42 PM To: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition Then there's something wrong with the definition of "statement". Would we not consider "this statement is false" and "the board of directors meets" as statements? Why couldn't the statement "the board of directors meets" simply be taken as ambiguous considering the temporal aspect? I would think that's the sort of thing SBVR tools should help people sort out. "Did you mean this ... or did you mean this?" SBVR can't do magic. People write ambiguous things(!). Ron Otherwise, SBVR is saying that expressions that look like statements are not statements if they do not represent meanings that are either true or false. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: Don Baisley To: Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM@IBMUS, "juergen@omg.org" Cc: "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Date: 05/20/2011 05:41 PM Subject: RE: A statement may express no proposition SBVR's definition of 'statement' is "representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition". In Mark's email below, Mark is either using a non-SBVR concept of 'statement' or, using SBVR's concept, he is saying that a representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition does not necessarily express a proposition. Regards, Don -----Original Message----- From: Mark H Linehan [ mailto:mlinehan@us.ibm.com] Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 1:08 PM To: juergen@omg.org Cc: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: A statement may express no proposition In clause 8.3.3, in the glossary entry for "statement", SBVR has the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition ". This Necessity is also shown in figure 8.4 and is cited as an example on printed page 6. The issue is that some statements do not express propositions (i.e. a meaning that is true or false, per the definition of 'proposition' in 8.1.2). There are at least two types of statements that are neither true nor false: (a) paradoxes, such as "This statement is false"; (b) atemporal statements used with temporal worlds. For example, the statement "the board of director meets" is a proposition (i.e. either true or false) in an atemporal world (i.e.a world that only contains facts about one moment in time). But in a world that has records of multiple meetings of the board of directors, the statement is ambiguous. It can be understood as true if read as meaning "the board of directors meets at some time". It is either true or false (according to the facts in the world) if it is read as "the board of directors meets right now". Clearly a statement does not express a proposition when the statement is paradoxical or ambiguous. Suggested resolution: Revise the Necessity to read "Each statement expresses at most one proposition." Revise the figure and the example to match. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research -- Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@nist.gov National Institute of Standards & Technology Manufacturing Systems Integration Division 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 Cel: +1 240-672-5800 "The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST, and have not been reviewed by any Government authority." -- Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@nist.gov National Institute of Standards & Technology Manufacturing Systems Integration Division 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 Cel: +1 240-672-5800 "The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST, and have not been reviewed by any Government authority." -- Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@nist.gov National Institute of Standards & Technology Manufacturing Systems Integration Division 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 Cel: +1 240-672-5800 "The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST, and have not been reviewed by any Government authority." m: "Donald Chapin" To: Subject: RE: issue 16258 -- SBVR RTF issue Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2011 15:31:11 -0000 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 14.0 Thread-Index: Acye9JafoSSzrICZQNqNvbBQnTltqw== X-Mirapoint-IP-Reputation: reputation=Good-1, source=Queried, refid=tid=0001.0A0B0302.4EBA9CC3.005B, actions=tag X-Junkmail-Premium-Raw: score=9/50, refid=2.7.2:2011.11.9.143914:17:9.975, ip=81.149.51.65, rules=__TO_MALFORMED_2, __TO_NO_NAME, __BOUNCE_CHALLENGE_SUBJ, __BOUNCE_NDR_SUBJ_EXEMPT, __SUBJ_ALPHA_END, __HAS_MSGID, __SANE_MSGID, __MIME_VERSION, __CT, __CTYPE_HAS_BOUNDARY, __CTYPE_MULTIPART, __CTYPE_MULTIPART_MIXED, __HAS_X_MAILER, __OUTLOOK_MUA_1, __USER_AGENT_MS_GENERIC, DOC_ATTACHED, __ANY_URI, __FRAUD_CONTACT_NUM, __CP_URI_IN_BODY, __C230066_P5, __FRAUD_CONTACT_NAME, __HTML_MSWORD, __HTML_FONT_BLUE, __EMBEDDED_IMG, __HAS_HTML, BODY_SIZE_10000_PLUS, BODYTEXTP_SIZE_3000_LESS, BODYTEXTH_SIZE_10000_LESS, __GIF_ATTACHED, GIF_VERSION89A, __GIF_WIDTH_100, GIF_GCT_NOTSORTED, __MIME_HTML, __IMGSPAM_BODY, __TAG_EXISTS_HTML, __STYLE_RATWARE_2, RDNS_GENERIC_POOLED, HTML_50_70, RDNS_SUSP_GENERIC, __OUTLOOK_MUA, RDNS_SUSP, FORGED_MUA_OUTLOOK, IMGSPAM_BODY X-Junkmail-Status: score=10/50, host=c2beaomr08.btconnect.com X-Junkmail-Signature-Raw: score=unknown, refid=str=0001.0A0B020C.4EBA9D75.01AD,ss=1,vtr=str,vl=0,fgs=0, ip=0.0.0.0, so=2010-07-22 22:03:31, dmn=2009-09-10 00:05:08, mode=multiengine X-Junkmail-IWF: false Attached is a revised draft resolution for Issue 16258 updated with input from Keri, Ed and Ron and a revised diagram from Keri for discussion in today.s telecon. From: Juergen Boldt [mailto:juergen@omg.org] Sent: 26 May 2011 15:59 To: issues@omg.org; sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: issue 16258 -- SBVR RTF issue This is issue # 16258 A statement may express no proposition Subject: A statement may express no proposition X-KeepSent: 158D3F89:05C85004-85257896:006CF6C2; type=4; name=$KeepSent To: juergen@omg.org Cc: sbvr-rtf@omg.org X-Mailer: Lotus Notes Release 8.5.1FP5 SHF29 November 12, 2010 From: Mark H Linehan Date: Fri, 20 May 2011 16:07:31 -0400 X-MIMETrack: Serialize by Router on D01MC604/01/M/IBM(Release 8.5.2FP1 ZX852FP1HF6|May 2, 2011) at 05/20/2011 16:07:34 In clause 8.3.3, in the glossary entry for "statement", SBVR has the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition ". This Necessity is also shown in figure 8.4 and is cited as an example on printed page 6. The issue is that some statements do not express propositions (i.e. a meaning that is true or false, per the definition of 'proposition' in 8.1.2). There are at least two types of statements that are neither true nor false: (a) paradoxes, such as "This statement is false"; (b) atemporal statements used with temporal worlds. For example, the statement "the board of director meets" is a proposition (i.e. either true or false) in an atemporal world (i.e.a world that only contains facts about one moment in time). But in a world that has records of multiple meetings of the board of directors, the statement is ambiguous. It can be understood as true if read as meaning "the board of directors meets at some time". It is either true or false (according to the facts in the world) if it is read as "the board of directors meets right now". Clearly a statement does not express a proposition when the statement is paradoxical or ambiguous. Suggested resolution: Revise the Necessity to read "Each statement expresses at most one proposition." Revise the figure and the example to match. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research Juergen Boldt Director, Member Services 140 Kendrick Street, Building A Suite 300 Needham, MA 02494 USA Tel: 781 444 0404 x 132 fax: 781 444 0320 www.omg.org Draft Resolution of Issue 16258 'A Statement may Express No Proposition' (2011-11-09).doc To: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Cc: Stan@hendryxassoc.com Subject: Issue 16258 - A Statement may Express No Proposition From: Mark H Linehan I want to explain why I objected to discussing this issue today. It's not that I think the resolution itself is wrong in the context of the way SBVR is currently defined. It's that I think this issue may be affected by whatever we decide about states of affairs (viz issue 14849 and others). So I think we should go to the heart of the matter rather than work on the periphery of the real issue. As I understand SBVR as of convenience document 8, whether an expression is a statement or not depends upon whether it represents a proposition or not. But the latter depends upon the possible world. Do we really want a definition of "statement" in which the classification of a representation as a statement or not a statement depends upon the possible world in which it is used? Consider the expression "the price of gas is above $4.00". This sure looks like a statement, and it certainly was a statement in the possible world consisting of NY State in December. But in the world of NY State right now, the price of gas is above $4.00 is some places in NY, and below that amount in other places in NY. So in this latter possible world, the expression does not represent a proposition. Question: is "statement" -- defined this way -- a useful concept? Note that "statement" is defined in terms of "proposition". If you agree that there's something wrong, then maybe the fault is something to do with "proposition" rather than with "statement". More specifically, there's something strange about the Necessity that "each proposition corresponds to at most one state of affairs". The expression about the price of gas is true in some places and not in others, so it's not a proposition according to that Necessity. But it sure looks and feels like a proposition. This is the core of the problem that DTV has had with SBVR's "state of affairs". DTV relates situations to time, and supports situations that occur at some times and do not occur at other times. Above, I deliberately gave an example of situations that vary over geographic location, but the problem's the same in the time dimension. In the same possible world, a proposition may have multiple occurrences and thus may not be consistently true nor false. Yet it still looks and feels like what I would expect to call a "proposition" and a "statement" of a "proposition". In the case of time, we're happy to assume "now" when needed. Thus, "the price of gas is above $4.00 [now]". That helps with the time dimension, but what about the location dimension? More importantly, when we formulate the expression, we objectify "the price of gas is above $4.00" and then relate that objectification to "now". But we run into a paradox: per 9.2.7, an objectification is a "logical formulation that involves a bindable target and a considered logical formulation and that formulates the meaning: the thing to which the bindable target refers is a state of affairs to which the meaning of the considered logical formulation corresponds ". But wait a minute, the expression "the price of gas is above $4.00" (without the "now") does not correspond to a state of affairs. So there can be no objectification of it. So we can't legitimately formulate "the price of gas is above $4.00 [now]". -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: Ed Barkmeyer To: Mark H Linehan Subject: Re: Issue 16258 - A Statement may Express No Proposition Mark, This is a great example. You have correctly focused the issue on getting a consistently meaningful set of definitions. It is indeed all about the definition of 'proposition', not the definition of 'statement'. One approach to solution is to define 'proposition' as 'meaning that /can be/ true or false', rather than 'meaning that /is/ true or false'. This allows for propositions whose truth value varies not only over possible worlds but also over time or location in a given possible world. An alternative is that there is a more general concept than proposition -- the conceptual situation (the "meaning of a sentence" independent of its truth) that may correspond to more than one actuality. 'proposition' is then the narrower concept that corresponds to at most one actuality in every possible world, and is thus true or false in every possible world. One of the articles Stan cited (Zalta) says that these two views of the meaning of a sentence -- a meaning that has a truth value vs. a conceptualization of a situation -- are representative of two large communities of logicians and semanticists. The debate goes back to the 1850s, but modern custom is to assign the formal semantics of truth values to Quine and Tarski in the 1950s and the formal semantics of 'situation concept' to Davidson and others in the late 1960s. SBVR v1.1 appears to have one foot in each camp: It adopts the Davidsonian view that situations are things that can play roles, but not the Davidsonian view that a SBVR:'proposition' (the meaning of a sentence) is a conceptualization of situations; SBVR says, like Tarski, that the meaning of a sentence is a truth value. In any case, I agree that Issue 16258 is part of the sentence - proposition - state of affairs - occurrence debate. -Ed Mark H Linehan wrote: ...snip... -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: Ed Barkmeyer To: Mark H Linehan Subject: Re: Issue 16258 - what a Statement is This is an aside, on the professional usage of English. SBVR says that 'representation' and its subtypes (designation, statement, definition, formulation, etc.) is the gerund -- the "act of representing". But "representation" (et al.) is also used in the ISO specifications and commonly in formal semantic and linguistic publications to refer to the role of the expression in the act of representing. That is, these terms also refer to the expression as carrying the meaning. We don't say that a concept "has a designating"; we say it "has a designation", i.e., it is associated with an expression that is doing the designating. This becomes much more apparent when we say (in clause 11) that a 'term' or a 'symbol' or a (Clause 8) 'placeholder' is a kind of 'designation'. No linguist agrees that 'term', 'symbol' and 'placeholder' are gerunds. They would, however, agree that they all refer to expressions seen as carrying a meaning. 'Term' is an attributive role that is owned by a concept and played by an expression. That role is based on the fact type: (expression) in (context) designates (concept). Unlike others, I do not suggest that we change Clause 11 out of linguistic purism. I do suggest that we have placed SBVR out of the mainstream linguistic vocabulary. So we have to be very careful with our speech. Now, in English, 'statement' has two meanings. One of them is a gerund -- the act of expressing a complete thought. The other is the expression uttered, considered as conveying the complete thought. Again, one is a gerund that corresponds to actualities, the other is an attributive role that is played by expressions. The attributive role belongs to the 'complete thought', what SBVR calls a 'proposition'. That is why the issue (16258) about 'statement' is really about the meaning of a 'sentence' -- a grammatical expression of a complete thought The term 'statement', as Mark used it, refers to the 'sentence expression' as a carrier of meaning, not as the representing of a meaning that is a truth value. The intended issue is: If we interpret a 'sentence expression' as representing a meaning that is a conceptual situation, can it correspond to more than one actual situation? Of course, SBVR never says anything at all about sentence expressions meaning conceptual situations. SBVR says that a 'statement' is the act of representing a meaning that is a truth value. So the issue can hardly be expressed in SBVR terms. To make any sense of SBVR, we need to agree that a meaning that corresponds to situations must be a conceptualization of situations, and define 'proposition' accordingly. Then we can talk about expressions that denote situations, in the same way that a term for a concept denotes its instances. And that will enable us to rephrase Mark's issue to what was intended. -Ed P.S. I personally have come to the conclusion that our biggest problem with 'state of affairs' is that SBVR mis-defined 'proposition' and didn't provide a notion of 'sentence'. A 'sentence' is an expression that can have four different referents: itself, the meaning it represents, the things it corresponds to, a truth value. An expression that designates a concept can only have the first three.From: "Donald Chapin" To: Subject: RE: issue 16258 -- SBVR RTF issue Attached is the proposed resolution to SBVR Issue 16258 as it was most recently discussed in the SBVR RTF telecon on November 2, 2011 -- revised with change tracking to incorporate the Nov 2nd Meeting Notes and all the SBVT RTF email input to the present (the most recent email was November 9th). Donald From: Juergen Boldt [mailto:juergen@omg.org] Sent: 26 May 2011 14:59 To: issues@omg.org; sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: issue 16258 -- SBVR RTF issue This is issue # 16258 A statement may express no proposition Subject: A statement may express no proposition X-KeepSent: 158D3F89:05C85004-85257896:006CF6C2; type=4; name=$KeepSent To: juergen@omg.org Cc: sbvr-rtf@omg.org X-Mailer: Lotus Notes Release 8.5.1FP5 SHF29 November 12, 2010 From: Mark H Linehan Date: Fri, 20 May 2011 16:07:31 -0400 X-MIMETrack: Serialize by Router on D01MC604/01/M/IBM(Release 8.5.2FP1 ZX852FP1HF6|May 2, 2011) at 05/20/2011 16:07:34 In clause 8.3.3, in the glossary entry for "statement", SBVR has the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition ". This Necessity is also shown in figure 8.4 and is cited as an example on printed page 6. The issue is that some statements do not express propositions (i.e. a meaning that is true or false, per the definition of 'proposition' in 8.1.2). There are at least two types of statements that are neither true nor false: (a) paradoxes, such as "This statement is false"; (b) atemporal statements used with temporal worlds. For example, the statement "the board of director meets" is a proposition (i.e. either true or false) in an atemporal world (i.e.a world that only contains facts about one moment in time). But in a world that has records of multiple meetings of the board of directors, the statement is ambiguous. It can be understood as true if read as meaning "the board of directors meets at some time". It is either true or false (according to the facts in the world) if it is read as "the board of directors meets right now". Clearly a statement does not express a proposition when the statement is paradoxical or ambiguous. Suggested resolution: Revise the Necessity to read "Each statement expresses at most one proposition." Revise the figure and the example to match. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research Juergen Boldt Director, Member Services 140 Kendrick Street, Building A Suite 300 Needham, MA 02494 USA Tel: 781 444 0404 x 132 fax: 781 444 0320 www.omg.org Draft Resolution of Issue 16258 'A Statement may Express No Proposition' (2012-01-20).doc From: "Donald Chapin" To: Subject: RE: issue 16258 -- SBVR RTF issue Attached is the proposed resolution for SBVR Issue 16258 discussed in today.s SBVR RTF telecom with all prior changes accepted . and revised to fix the points raised in today.s telecom with fixes shown as tracked changes. This will be discussed and hopefully accepted for ballot in next Friday.s telecon. Donald From: Juergen Boldt [mailto:juergen@omg.org] Sent: 26 May 2011 14:59 To: issues@omg.org; sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: issue 16258 -- SBVR RTF issue This is issue # 16258 A statement may express no proposition Subject: A statement may express no proposition X-KeepSent: 158D3F89:05C85004-85257896:006CF6C2; type=4; name=$KeepSent To: juergen@omg.org Cc: sbvr-rtf@omg.org X-Mailer: Lotus Notes Release 8.5.1FP5 SHF29 November 12, 2010 From: Mark H Linehan Date: Fri, 20 May 2011 16:07:31 -0400 X-MIMETrack: Serialize by Router on D01MC604/01/M/IBM(Release 8.5.2FP1 ZX852FP1HF6|May 2, 2011) at 05/20/2011 16:07:34 In clause 8.3.3, in the glossary entry for "statement", SBVR has the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition ". This Necessity is also shown in figure 8.4 and is cited as an example on printed page 6. The issue is that some statements do not express propositions (i.e. a meaning that is true or false, per the definition of 'proposition' in 8.1.2). There are at least two types of statements that are neither true nor false: (a) paradoxes, such as "This statement is false"; (b) atemporal statements used with temporal worlds. For example, the statement "the board of director meets" is a proposition (i.e. either true or false) in an atemporal world (i.e.a world that only contains facts about one moment in time). But in a world that has records of multiple meetings of the board of directors, the statement is ambiguous. It can be understood as true if read as meaning "the board of directors meets at some time". It is either true or false (according to the facts in the world) if it is read as "the board of directors meets right now". Clearly a statement does not express a proposition when the statement is paradoxical or ambiguous. Suggested resolution: Revise the Necessity to read "Each statement expresses at most one proposition." Revise the figure and the example to match. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research Juergen Boldt Director, Member Services 140 Kendrick Street, Building A Suite 300 Needham, MA 02494 USA Tel: 781 444 0404 x 132 fax: 781 444 0320 www.omg.org Draft Resolution of Issue 16258 'A Statement may Express No Proposition' (2012-01-21).doc To: sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: RE: issue 16258 -- SBVR RTF issue From: Mark H Linehan Donald, I thought we agreed to leave the existing definition of "statement" alone and put the discussion of "... such as a simple sentence with one clause, or a complex sentence or group of sentences with multiple clauses, " in the last Note. Regarding this sentence of that last Note: "In sentences each clause represents individually a given proposition that is its meaning." This is certainly true but could be read to mean that only the individual clause represents a proposition. It is important for readers to understand that sentences may represent propositions not just at the individual clause level but in combinations of clauses. For example, in EU-Rent example rule number 6 from page 272 of convenience document 8, the rule "It is permitted that a rental is open only if an estimated rental charge is provisionally charged to a credit card of the renter that is responsible for the rental. " has multiple clauses, e.g. for the antecedent and consequent parts of the rule. Plus the rule itself is a proposition. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: "Donald Chapin" To: Date: 01/20/2012 01:24 PM Subject: RE: issue 16258 -- SBVR RTF issue -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Attached is the proposed resolution for SBVR Issue 16258 discussed in todayâs SBVR RTF telecom with all prior changes accepted . and revised to fiix the points raised in todayâs telecom with fixes shown as tracked changes. This will be discussed and hopefully accepted for ballot in next Fridayâs telecon. Donald From: Juergen Boldt [mailto:juergen@omg.org] Sent: 26 May 2011 14:59 To: issues@omg.org; sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: issue 16258 -- SBVR RTF issue This is issue # 16258 A statement may express no proposition Subject: A statement may express no proposition X-KeepSent: 158D3F89:05C85004-85257896:006CF6C2; type=4; name=$KeepSent To: juergen@omg.org Cc: sbvr-rtf@omg.org X-Mailer: Lotus Notes Release 8.5.1FP5 SHF29 November 12, 2010 From: Mark H Linehan Date: Fri, 20 May 2011 16:07:31 -0400 X-MIMETrack: Serialize by Router on D01MC604/01/M/IBM(Release 8.5.2FP1 ZX852FP1HF6|May 2, 2011) at 05/20/2011 16:07:34 In clause 8.3.3, in the glossary entry for "statement", SBVR has the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition ". This Necessity is also shown in figure 8.4 and is cited as an example on printed page 6. The issue is that some statements do not express propositions (i.e. a meaning that is true or false, per the definition of 'proposition' in 8.1.2). There are at least two types of statements that are neither true nor false: (a) paradoxes, such as "This statement is false"; (b) atemporal statements used with temporal worlds. For example, the statement "the board of director meets" is a proposition (i.e. either true or false) in an atemporal world (i.e.a world that only contains facts about one moment in time). But in a world that has records of multiple meetings of the board of directors, the statement is ambiguous. It can be understood as true if read as meaning "the board of directors meets at some time". It is either true or false (according to the facts in the world) if it is read as "the board of directors meets right now". Clearly a statement does not express a proposition when the statement is paradoxical or ambiguous. Suggested resolution: Revise the Necessity to read "Each statement expresses at most one proposition." Revise the figure and the example to match. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research Juergen Boldt Director, Member Services 140 Kendrick Street, Building A Suite 300 Needham, MA 02494 USA Tel: 781 444 0404 x 132 fax: 781 444 0320 www.omg.org [attachment "Draft Resolution of Issue 16258 'A Statement may Express No Proposition' (2012-01-21).doc" deleted by Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM] From: Ed Barkmeyer To: Mark H Linehan Subject: Re: issue 16258 -- SBVR RTF issue In passing, I would observe that we are using two terms here that are not in the SBVR vocabulary, and that have well-defined linguistic definitions. Converted to SBVR form, the definitions might be something like: simple clause: expression that is based on one fact type form, with expressions that refer to things or concepts substituted for the placeholders in the fact type form. compound clause: expression that consists of two or more clauses connected by the logical connectors 'and', 'or' or 'nor'. clause: simple clause or compound clause sentence: one clause or two clauses that are connected by "conditional connectors" such as 'if', 'only if' and 'unless'. Note: The meaning of a clause is a proposition, and the meaning of a sentence is a proposition. Note: The expressions that substitute for the placeholders may themselves contain clauses that qualify named concepts to create new concepts. Also, the expression that substitutes for a placeholder may in some cases be a clause that refers to itself (an individual concept), to the proposition that it means (an individual concept), or to states of affairs that the proposition that it means 'corresponds to' (a general, possibly unitary, concept). This is all perilously close to doing what Annex C does not do: defining a grammar. The critical idea here is that a simple clause is based on one fact type form, and sentences are constructed from simple clauses. The simple clause means a proposition, and truth values are fundamentally assigned to the propositions meant by simple clauses. What we call 'mathematical logic' tells us how to assign truth values to more complex sentences, based on the connectives and the truth values assigned to the individual clauses. That leads me to ask whether a 'statement' is the representation relationship between a 'sentence' and a proposition, or between a 'clause' and a proposition. In: if a person is an authorized person, the person may enter Restricted Area H1. Is there a relationship between 'a person is an authorized person' and a proposition? (Yes!) Is that relationship a 'statement'? IMO, the proposition is the meaning of the simple clause -- the conceptualization of the state/event/action that it describes. The proposition that is the meaning of a more complex clause/sentence is built from the combination of the meanings of the simple clauses and the meanings of the connectors. Each proposition has the potential to be true or false in possible worlds, or perhaps only at some times in a given possible world. The nature of a proposition is to /have the potential to be/ true or false, rather than to /be/ true or false. A concept does not have that potential, ever. Note also that this "potential" is not about 'possibility' as defined in SBVR. A proposition can be 'impossible' -- false in every possible world -- and still be a proposition. It has the potential to be false. We want to separate these concerns from the unrelated issue of paradoxical statements. As Pat Hayes pointed out recently on the Ontolog Forum exploder, a paradoxical statement can be 'syntactically invalid' -- not a sentence in the language -- or it can simply be always false. Which of those is the case depends on the rules of the language. In SBVR, for example, 'this sentence is false' is not a valid Structured English utterance, because 'this' is not a keyword. So that expression is not defined to represent any meaning. Even if 'this' were a keyword, the language would have to tell us what sentence is the referent of 'this sentence'. For example, 'this sentence' might be interpreted as referring to the immediately preceding sentence, and that one may very well be false. And so on. On the other hand, 'this sentence is false' could have the interpretation: Let S be whatever 'this sentence' refers to. S is a proposition, so S must be either true or false. Assume S is true. According to the sentence, If S is true, S is false. So we can conclude S is false (modus ponens). That is a contradiction -- 'S is false' contradicts the hypothesis 'S is true'. Therefore the hypothesis 'S is true' can be eliminated (modus tollens): S cannot be true. The remaining hypothesis is that S is false, and 'if S is false, then S is false' is consistent. There is no paradox: "This sentence is false" is false. The point is that lingustic tricks require a language with a tolerant grammar and semantics. We only have paradoxes if we introduce a language in which they are valid utterances and an interpretation of that language which makes them paradoxical. We don't need to repeat the 19th century analysis of this problem; it was solved in the 1920s with the idea of formalizing the logic language. "No one can make a fool of you without your assistance." -- Benjamin Franklin -Ed Mark H Linehan wrote: Donald, ...snip... _ [attachment "Draft Resolution of Issue 16258 'A Statement may Express No Proposition' (2012-01-21).doc" deleted by Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM] From: "Barkmeyer, Edward J" To: "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" Subject: FW: issue 16258 -- SBVR RTF issue ________________________________________ From: Stan Hendryx [stan@hendryxassoc.com] Sent: Friday, January 20, 2012 10:08 PM To: Barkmeyer, Edward J Cc: Mark H Linehan Subject: Re: issue 16258 -- SBVR RTF issue I understand the issue is about the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition " I have always assumed that an expression is a valid statement in a language if and only if it satisfies these two criteria: 1. It it a valid production of the grammar of the language. 2. It is fully supported by the vocabulary of the language. It is self-evident that if an expression is not a valid statement in the language it cannot represent a proposition expressible in the language. The grammar rules reject self-referring sentences like "this sentence is false" because self-reference is not a valid grammatical construct. The binding rules of the language do not permit it, as Ed pointed out. The vocabulary rejects as gobbledygook nonsensical but grammatically correct sentences like "curious green ideas sleep furiously," unless the underlying concepts and fact types are in the vocabulary. These conditions mean that each statement is formal, "colored." All bets are off if the expression cannot be colored; it is not a statement. It does not represent any known meaning of the language. It cannot be parsed and logically formulated. We are talking about machine recognition here, not human readability. One goal of SBVR implementation is to extend machine readability to better understand natural language. I gauge this by how much can be colored. Statements are declarative sentences, which always are headed by a finite verb and have their specifier and complement placeholders filled. Mark gave the example, "the board of directors meets" as being ambiguous, depending on the world view. I think this is incorrect if the vocabulary contains a unary fact type like 'group meets'. It might also contain a binary fact type 'group meets on schedule'. These are different concepts and would not be confused when used correctly. The expression "the board of directors meets" is a valid declarative sentence based on the unary fact type. Its meaning is a clear as its definition. Whether it is true or false depends on the definition and certain facts; maybe the schedule needs to have at least one meeting a year, or something to that effect, for the unary to be true, which case it is true if less than a year has elapsed since the last meeting. In a Date-Time world the time interval for which the occurrence of the unary occurs would be unknown without some facts that specify it. This is like Sam smokes or Dave drinks. Sam quit. Dave quit. How long since the last smoke or drink? That is what makes these true or false, based on some criteria. I suggest the necessity be left as-is, and put some language in saying what constitutes a valid statement, if that is necessary. Stan On Jan 20, 2012, at 3:18 PM, Ed Barkmeyer wrote: In passing, I would observe that we are using two terms here that are not in the SBVR vocabulary, and that have well-defined linguistic definitions. Converted to SBVR form, the definitions might be something like: simple clause: expression that is based on one fact type form, with expressions that refer to things or concepts substituted for the placeholders in the fact type form. compound clause: expression that consists of two or more clauses connected by the logical connectors 'and', 'or' or 'nor'. clause: simple clause or compound clause sentence: one clause or two clauses that are connected by "conditional connectors" such as 'if', 'only if' and 'unless'. Note: The meaning of a clause is a proposition, and the meaning of a sentence is a proposition. Note: The expressions that substitute for the placeholders may themselves contain clauses that qualify named concepts to create new concepts. Also, the expression that substitutes for a placeholder may in some cases be a clause that refers to itself (an individual concept), to the proposition that it means (an individual concept), or to states of affairs that the proposition that it means 'corresponds to' (a general, possibly unitary, concept). This is all perilously close to doing what Annex C does not do: defining a grammar. The critical idea here is that a simple clause is based on one fact type form, and sentences are constructed from simple clauses. The simple clause means a proposition, and truth values are fundamentally assigned to the propositions meant by simple clauses. What we call 'mathematical logic' tells us how to assign truth values to more complex sentences, based on the connectives and the truth values assigned to the individual clauses. That leads me to ask whether a 'statement' is the representation relationship between a 'sentence' and a proposition, or between a 'clause' and a proposition. In: if a person is an authorized person, the person may enter Restricted Area H1. Is there a relationship between 'a person is an authorized person' and a proposition? (Yes!) Is that relationship a 'statement'? IMO, the proposition is the meaning of the simple clause -- the conceptualization of the state/event/action that it describes. The proposition that is the meaning of a more complex clause/sentence is built from the combination of the meanings of the simple clauses and the meanings of the connectors. Each proposition has the potential to be true or false in possible worlds, or perhaps only at some times in a given possible world. The nature of a proposition is to /have the potential to be/ true or false, rather than to /be/ true or false. A concept does not have that potential, ever. Note also that this "potential" is not about 'possibility' as defined in SBVR. A proposition can be 'impossible' -- false in every possible world -- and still be a proposition. It has the potential to be false. We want to separate these concerns from the unrelated issue of paradoxical statements. As Pat Hayes pointed out recently on the Ontolog Forum exploder, a paradoxical statement can be 'syntactically invalid' -- not a sentence in the language -- or it can simply be always false. Which of those is the case depends on the rules of the language. In SBVR, for example, 'this sentence is false' is not a valid Structured English utterance, because 'this' is not a keyword. So that expression is not defined to represent any meaning. Even if 'this' were a keyword, the language would have to tell us what sentence is the referent of 'this sentence'. For example, 'this sentence' might be interpreted as referring to the immediately preceding sentence, and that one may very well be false. And so on. On the other hand, 'this sentence is false' could have the interpretation: Let S be whatever 'this sentence' refers to. S is a proposition, so S must be either true or false. Assume S is true. According to the sentence, If S is true, S is false. So we can conclude S is false (modus ponens). That is a contradiction -- 'S is false' contradicts the hypothesis 'S is true'. Therefore the hypothesis 'S is true' can be eliminated (modus tollens): S cannot be true. The remaining hypothesis is that S is false, and 'if S is false, then S is false' is consistent. There is no paradox: "This sentence is false" is false. The point is that lingustic tricks require a language with a tolerant grammar and semantics. We only have paradoxes if we introduce a language in which they are valid utterances and an interpretation of that language which makes them paradoxical. We don't need to repeat the 19th century analysis of this problem; it was solved in the 1920s with the idea of formalizing the logic language. "No one can make a fool of you without your assistance." -- Benjamin Franklin -Ed -- Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@nist.gov National Institute of Standards & Technology Manufacturing Systems Integration Division 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 Cel: +1 240-672-5800 "The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST, and have not been reviewed by any Government authority." Mark H Linehan wrote: Donald, I thought we agreed to leave the existing definition of "statement" alone and put the discussion of "... such as a simple sentence with one clause, or a complex sentence or group of sentences with multiple clauses, " in the last Note. Regarding this sentence of that last Note: "In sentences each clause represents individually a given proposition that is its meaning." This is certainly true but could be read to mean that only the individual clause represents a proposition. It is important for readers to understand that sentences may represent propositions not just at the individual clause level but in combinations of clauses. For example, in EU-Rent example rule number 6 from page 272 of convenience document 8, the rule "It is permitted that a rental /is open /only if an estimated rental charge /is provisionally charged to /a credit card /of /the renter that /is responsible for /the rental. " has multiple clauses, e.g. for the antecedent and consequent parts of the rule. Plus the rule itself is a proposition. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research From: "Donald Chapin" > To: > Date: 01/20/2012 01:24 PM Subject: RE: issue 16258 -- SBVR RTF issue ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Attached is the proposed resolution for SBVR Issue 16258 discussed in today.s SBVR RTF telecom with all prior changes accepted ­ and revised to fix the points raised in today.s telecom with fixes shown as tracked changes. This will be discussed and hopefully accepted for ballot in next Friday.s telecon. Donald *From:* Juergen Boldt [mailto:juergen@omg.org] * Sent:* 26 May 2011 14:59* To:* issues@omg.org; sbvr-rtf@omg.org* Subject:* issue 16258 -- SBVR RTF issue This is issue # 16258 A statement may express no proposition Subject: A statement may express no proposition X-KeepSent: 158D3F89:05C85004-85257896:006CF6C2; type=4; name=$KeepSent To: _juergen@omg.org_ Cc: _sbvr-rtf@omg.org_ X-Mailer: Lotus Notes Release 8.5.1FP5 SHF29 November 12, 2010 From: Mark H Linehan <_mlinehan@us.ibm.com_ > Date: Fri, 20 May 2011 16:07:31 -0400 X-MIMETrack: Serialize by Router on D01MC604/01/M/IBM(Release 8.5.2FP1 ZX852FP1HF6|May 2, 2011) at 05/20/2011 16:07:34 In clause 8.3.3, in the glossary entry for "statement", SBVR has the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition ". This Necessity is also shown in figure 8.4 and is cited as an example on printed page 6. The issue is that some statements do not express propositions (i.e. a meaning that is true or false, per the definition of 'proposition' in 8.1.2). There are at least two types of statements that are neither true nor false: (a) paradoxes, such as "This statement is false"; (b) atemporal statements used with temporal worlds. For example, the statement "the board of director meets" is a proposition (i.e. either true or false) in an atemporal world (i.e.a world that only contains facts about one moment in time). But in a world that has records of multiple meetings of the board of directors, the statement is ambiguous. It can be understood as true if read as meaning "the board of directors meets at some time". It is either true or false (according to the facts in the world) if it is read as "the board of directors meets right now". Clearly a statement does not express a proposition when the statement is paradoxical or ambiguous. Suggested resolution: Revise the Necessity to read "Each statement expresses at most one proposition." Revise the figure and the example to match. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research Juergen Boldt Director, Member Services 140 Kendrick Street, Building A Suite 300 Needham, MA 02494 USA Tel: 781 444 0404 x 132 fax: 781 444 0320 _ __www.omg.org_ _ _ [attachment "Draft Resolution of Issue 16258 'A Statement may Express No Proposition' (2012-01-21).doc" deleted by Mark H Linehan/Watson/IBM] From: "Donald Chapin" To: Subject: RE: issue 16258 -- SBVR RTF issue Attached is an updated draft resolution for Issue 16258 incorporating feedback from the January 21st version that was posted right after last week.s SBVR RTF telecon. Donald From: Juergen Boldt [mailto:juergen@omg.org] Sent: 26 May 2011 14:59 To: issues@omg.org; sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: issue 16258 -- SBVR RTF issue This is issue # 16258 A statement may express no proposition Subject: A statement may express no proposition X-KeepSent: 158D3F89:05C85004-85257896:006CF6C2; type=4; name=$KeepSent To: juergen@omg.org Cc: sbvr-rtf@omg.org X-Mailer: Lotus Notes Release 8.5.1FP5 SHF29 November 12, 2010 From: Mark H Linehan Date: Fri, 20 May 2011 16:07:31 -0400 X-MIMETrack: Serialize by Router on D01MC604/01/M/IBM(Release 8.5.2FP1 ZX852FP1HF6|May 2, 2011) at 05/20/2011 16:07:34 In clause 8.3.3, in the glossary entry for "statement", SBVR has the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition ". This Necessity is also shown in figure 8.4 and is cited as an example on printed page 6. The issue is that some statements do not express propositions (i.e. a meaning that is true or false, per the definition of 'proposition' in 8.1.2). There are at least two types of statements that are neither true nor false: (a) paradoxes, such as "This statement is false"; (b) atemporal statements used with temporal worlds. For example, the statement "the board of director meets" is a proposition (i.e. either true or false) in an atemporal world (i.e.a world that only contains facts about one moment in time). But in a world that has records of multiple meetings of the board of directors, the statement is ambiguous. It can be understood as true if read as meaning "the board of directors meets at some time". It is either true or false (according to the facts in the world) if it is read as "the board of directors meets right now". Clearly a statement does not express a proposition when the statement is paradoxical or ambiguous. Suggested resolution: Revise the Necessity to read "Each statement expresses at most one proposition." Revise the figure and the example to match. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research Juergen Boldt Director, Member Services 140 Kendrick Street, Building A Suite 300 Needham, MA 02494 USA Tel: 781 444 0404 x 132 fax: 781 444 0320 www.omg.org Draft Resolution of Issue 16258 'A Statement may Express No Proposition' (2012-01-27).doc From: "Donald Chapin" To: Subject: RE: issue 16258 -- SBVR RTF issue Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2012 15:01:14 +0100 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 14.0 Thread-Index: AcwbtX+OUU+pgu1tR0Soc+gvaqdvmFZt0b1g X-Mirapoint-IP-Reputation: reputation=Fair-1, source=Queried, refid=tid=0001.0A0B0302.5022712C.005C, actions=tag X-Junkmail-Premium-Raw: score=9/50, refid=2.7.2:2012.8.8.133332:17:9.975, ip=81.149.51.65, rules=__HAS_FROM, __TO_MALFORMED_2, __TO_NO_NAME, __BOUNCE_CHALLENGE_SUBJ, __BOUNCE_NDR_SUBJ_EXEMPT, __SUBJ_ALPHA_END, __HAS_MSGID, __SANE_MSGID, __MIME_VERSION, __CT, __CTYPE_HAS_BOUNDARY, __CTYPE_MULTIPART, __CTYPE_MULTIPART_MIXED, __HAS_X_MAILER, __OUTLOOK_MUA_1, __USER_AGENT_MS_GENERIC, DOC_ATTACHED, __ANY_URI, LINK_TO_IMAGE, URI_ENDS_IN_HTML, __FRAUD_CONTACT_NUM, __CP_URI_IN_BODY, __C230066_P5, __HTML_MSWORD, __HTML_FONT_BLUE, __HAS_HTML, BODY_SIZE_10000_PLUS, BODYTEXTP_SIZE_3000_LESS, BODYTEXTH_SIZE_10000_LESS, __MIME_HTML, __IMGSPAM_BODY, __TAG_EXISTS_HTML, __STYLE_RATWARE_2, RDNS_GENERIC_POOLED, HTML_50_70, RDNS_SUSP_GENERIC, __OUTLOOK_MUA, RDNS_SUSP, FORGED_MUA_OUTLOOK, IMGSPAM_BODY X-Junkmail-Status: score=10/50, host=c2beaomr09.btconnect.com X-Junkmail-Signature-Raw: score=unknown, refid=str=0001.0A0B0209.5022712F.0058,ss=1,re=0.000,vtr=str,vl=0,fgs=0, ip=0.0.0.0, so=2011-07-25 19:15:43, dmn=2011-05-27 18:58:46, mode=multiengine X-Junkmail-IWF: false All . Attached is a draft resolution for Issue 16258 that is part of the package of five that addresses the .state of affairs. question. Donald From: Juergen Boldt [mailto:juergen@omg.org] Sent: 26 May 2011 15:59 To: issues@omg.org; sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: issue 16258 -- SBVR RTF issue This is issue # 16258 A statement may express no proposition Subject: A statement may express no proposition X-KeepSent: 158D3F89:05C85004-85257896:006CF6C2; type=4; name=$KeepSent To: juergen@omg.org Cc: sbvr-rtf@omg.org X-Mailer: Lotus Notes Release 8.5.1FP5 SHF29 November 12, 2010 From: Mark H Linehan Date: Fri, 20 May 2011 16:07:31 -0400 X-MIMETrack: Serialize by Router on D01MC604/01/M/IBM(Release 8.5.2FP1 ZX852FP1HF6|May 2, 2011) at 05/20/2011 16:07:34 In clause 8.3.3, in the glossary entry for "statement", SBVR has the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition ". This Necessity is also shown in figure 8.4 and is cited as an example on printed page 6. The issue is that some statements do not express propositions (i.e. a meaning that is true or false, per the definition of 'proposition' in 8.1.2). There are at least two types of statements that are neither true nor false: (a) paradoxes, such as "This statement is false"; (b) atemporal statements used with temporal worlds. For example, the statement "the board of director meets" is a proposition (i.e. either true or false) in an atemporal world (i.e.a world that only contains facts about one moment in time). But in a world that has records of multiple meetings of the board of directors, the statement is ambiguous. It can be understood as true if read as meaning "the board of directors meets at some time". It is either true or false (according to the facts in the world) if it is read as "the board of directors meets right now". Clearly a statement does not express a proposition when the statement is paradoxical or ambiguous. Suggested resolution: Revise the Necessity to read "Each statement expresses at most one proposition." Revise the figure and the example to match. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research Juergen Boldt Director, Member Services 140 Kendrick Street, Building A Suite 300 Needham, MA 02494 USA Tel: 781 444 0404 x 132 fax: 781 444 0320 www.omg.org From: "Donald Chapin" To: Subject: RE: issue 16258 -- SBVR RTF issue Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 09:53:56 +0100 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 14.0 Thread-Index: Ac2RjUhCkkJzx7RKTEy3YRZVkL0WOw== X-Mirapoint-IP-Reputation: reputation=Good-1, source=Queried, refid=tid=0001.0A0B0302.50519F27.0073, actions=tag X-Junkmail-Premium-Raw: score=9/50, refid=2.7.2:2012.9.13.83614:17:9.975, ip=81.149.51.65, rules=__HAS_FROM, __TO_MALFORMED_2, __TO_NO_NAME, __BOUNCE_CHALLENGE_SUBJ, __BOUNCE_NDR_SUBJ_EXEMPT, __SUBJ_ALPHA_END, __HAS_MSGID, __SANE_MSGID, __MIME_VERSION, __CT, __CTYPE_HAS_BOUNDARY, __CTYPE_MULTIPART, __CTYPE_MULTIPART_MIXED, __HAS_X_MAILER, __OUTLOOK_MUA_1, __USER_AGENT_MS_GENERIC, DOC_ATTACHED, __ANY_URI, URI_ENDS_IN_HTML, __FRAUD_CONTACT_NUM, __CP_URI_IN_BODY, __C230066_P5, __HTML_MSWORD, __HTML_FONT_BLUE, __EMBEDDED_IMG, __HAS_HTML, BODY_SIZE_10000_PLUS, BODYTEXTP_SIZE_3000_LESS, BODYTEXTH_SIZE_10000_LESS, __GIF_ATTACHED, GIF_VERSION89A, __GIF_WIDTH_100, GIF_GCT_NOTSORTED, __MIME_HTML, __IMGSPAM_BODY, __TAG_EXISTS_HTML, __STYLE_RATWARE_2, RDNS_GENERIC_POOLED, HTML_50_70, RDNS_SUSP_GENERIC, __OUTLOOK_MUA, RDNS_SUSP, FORGED_MUA_OUTLOOK, IMGSPAM_BODY X-Junkmail-Status: score=10/50, host=c2beaomr07.btconnect.com X-Junkmail-Signature-Raw: score=unknown, refid=str=0001.0A0B0206.50519F2A.0043,ss=1,re=0.000,vtr=str,vl=0,fgs=0, ip=0.0.0.0, so=2011-07-25 19:15:43, dmn=2011-05-27 18:58:46, mode=multiengine X-Junkmail-IWF: false All . Attached in a new version of the resolution for SBVR Issue 16258 updated from notes for the most recent SBVR RTF telecon discussion. Donald From: Juergen Boldt [mailto:juergen@omg.org] Sent: 26 May 2011 15:59 To: issues@omg.org; sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: issue 16258 -- SBVR RTF issue This is issue # 16258 A statement may express no proposition Subject: A statement may express no proposition X-KeepSent: 158D3F89:05C85004-85257896:006CF6C2; type=4; name=$KeepSent To: juergen@omg.org Cc: sbvr-rtf@omg.org X-Mailer: Lotus Notes Release 8.5.1FP5 SHF29 November 12, 2010 From: Mark H Linehan Date: Fri, 20 May 2011 16:07:31 -0400 X-MIMETrack: Serialize by Router on D01MC604/01/M/IBM(Release 8.5.2FP1 ZX852FP1HF6|May 2, 2011) at 05/20/2011 16:07:34 In clause 8.3.3, in the glossary entry for "statement", SBVR has the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition ". This Necessity is also shown in figure 8.4 and is cited as an example on printed page 6. The issue is that some statements do not express propositions (i.e. a meaning that is true or false, per the definition of 'proposition' in 8.1.2). There are at least two types of statements that are neither true nor false: (a) paradoxes, such as "This statement is false"; (b) atemporal statements used with temporal worlds. For example, the statement "the board of director meets" is a proposition (i.e. either true or false) in an atemporal world (i.e.a world that only contains facts about one moment in time). But in a world that has records of multiple meetings of the board of directors, the statement is ambiguous. It can be understood as true if read as meaning "the board of directors meets at some time". It is either true or false (according to the facts in the world) if it is read as "the board of directors meets right now". Clearly a statement does not express a proposition when the statement is paradoxical or ambiguous. Suggested resolution: Revise the Necessity to read "Each statement expresses at most one proposition." Revise the figure and the example to match. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research Juergen Boldt Director, Member Services 140 Kendrick Street, Building A Suite 300 Needham, MA 02494 USA Tel: 781 444 0404 x 132 fax: 781 444 0320 www.omg.org Issue 16258 'A Statement may Express No Proposition'(2012-09-12).doc Disposition: Resolved OMG Issue No: 16258 Title: A statement may express no proposition Source: International Business Machines (Mr. Mark H. Linehan, mlinehan@us.ibm.com) Summary: Issue Statement In clause 8.3.3, in the glossary entry for "statement", SBVR has the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition ". This Necessity is also shown in figure 8.4 and is cited as an example on printed page 6. The issue is that some statements do not express propositions (i.e. a meaning that is true or false, per the definition of 'proposition' in 8.1.2). There are at least two types of statements that are neither true nor false: (a) paradoxes, such as "This statement is false"; (b) atemporal statements used with temporal worlds. For example, the statement "the board of director meets" is a proposition (i.e. either true or false) in an atemporal world (i.e., a world that only contains facts about one moment in time). But in a world that has records of multiple meetings of the board of directors, the statement is ambiguous. It can be understood as true if read as meaning "the board of directors meets at some time". It is either true or false (according to the facts in the world) if it is read as "the board of directors meets right now". Clearly a statement does not express a proposition when the statement is paradoxical or ambiguous. Suggested resolution: Revise the Necessity to read "Each statement expresses at most one proposition." Revise the figure and the example to match. Resolution: A sentence that does not express a proposition is not an expression of a statement. It should be referred to simply as a .sentence.. 1. Add some clarifying words to the definition of .statement. without changing the meaning. 2. Add a note to state that if an expression is an ambiguous sentence, one that represents two different propositions, each of the two representations is a separate statement. 3. Add a note that a paradoxical expression (e.g., .This sentence is false..) that fails to represent a meaning that is true or false is not considered to be an expression of a statement. 4. Add a note that clarifies the use of .sentence. in relation to .statement.. 5. Add a note that time, if it is to be part of the proposition, must be explicit in the statement. 6. Add a Note that using a statement is a descriptive example is merely illustrative and is not an assertion of truth-value. 7. Add a note clarifying the relationship between closed logical formulations and statements of a proposition. 8. Add the fact type .expression is unambiguous to speech community.. Revised Text: REPLACE the Definition under the entry for .statement. in Subclause 8.3.3: Definition: representation of a proposition by an expression of the proposition WITH this: Definition: representation of a proposition by an expression that is non-paradoxical and meaningful and that is a simple sentence with one declarative clause, or a complex sentence or group of sentences that together contain one or more declarative clauses ADD the following Notes and necessity at the end of the entry for .statement. in Subclause 8.3.3: Note: A statement combines a single expression with a single meaning of that expression. If an expression is an ambiguous sentence, one that represents two different propositions, each of the two representations is considered to be a separate statement. See .expression is unambiguous to speech community. in 11.2.1.4. Note: A paradoxical expression is not an expression of a statement. A paradox is independent of whether or not the truth-value is known. Note: In sentences each declarative clause represents individually a given proposition that is its meaning. Complex sentences and groups of multiple sentences can also represent a single proposition. The terms .sentence. and .clause. are used in SBVR with their most common grammatical meaning Note: Propositions and their statements can either include make specific references to time or be timelessmake make no specific references to time i.e. the proposition makes no reference to time other than by use of tense and aspect in the verb. Every clause in an English sentence has one verb which has a time that is determined by the tense and aspects of the verb with all combinations relative to a present time. The present time that each verb is related to is an indexical and is not a specific time. It is important to note that including the word .now. is an explicit reference to time, which is different for the implicit reference for tense and aspect for the indexical .present time.. The present time for each verb in each clause in the English sentence becomes specific when you relate the sentence to a possible world to ask if is it true or false in that possible world. The present time in the sentence becomes specific to the .present time. of the possible world being considered to determine the truth-value. If no time is in the statement of a proposition other than verb tense and aspect, no time is assumed and the proposition is a timeless proposition. If time is intended to be part of the proposition, it must be explicit stated in the statement in words other than the use of tense and aspect for verbs. A timeless proposition applies to any and all present times. Note: Including a statement of a proposition in a descriptive example does not assert the truth of the proposition. It is simply an illustrative example of the concept. This is unlike including a statement of the same proposition in a factbase which, by definition, includes an assertion of .taken to be true.. Note: If the SBVR Business Vocabulary and Rulebook contains no logical formulation for the proposition, each of the statements of the proposition must be synonymous, and determines the proposition i.e. the meaning. If there is at least one logical formulation of the proposition, the statements of the proposition and the logical formulations of the proposition must all say exactly the same thing i.e. they must be synonymous. Necessity: Each statement that represents a given proposition and each closed logical formulation that means that given proposition must be synonymous, and both individually and together with all the other synonymous statements and formulations determine the propositon i.e. the meaning. In Subclause 11.2.1 REPLACE Figure 11.6 with this: ADD the following entry immediately following the entry for .speech community regulates its usage of signifier. in Clause 11.2.1.4: expression is unambiguous to speech community Definition: the expression is understood by each member of the speech community to represent exactly one and the same meaning Note: In SBVR, a fully and accurately styled expression is assumed to be unambiguous. (Formal assessment of the expression, of course, may find that it is not.) The verb concept .expression is unambiguous to speech community. is not used for such expressions. Only informal statements (unstyled or partially styled) should use this verb concept. In communicating expressions, recipients need a sense of the viability of what is being communicated. Use of the verb concept to indicate that an expression is unambiguous indicates that an informal assessment has been made and that the meaning of the expression is thought to be clear. Caution should be exercised in this regard. Even expressions thought to be self-evidently unambiguous may be found not to be so. Practitioners should generally err on the side of caution, especially in expressing elements of guidance. Disposition: Resolved From: "Donald Chapin" To: Subject: RE: issue 16258 -- SBVR RTF issue Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2012 11:36:00 +0100 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 14.0 Thread-Index: Ac2t5YR8q3CgJGD0TMWIBCbF64dLOw== X-Mirapoint-IP-Reputation: reputation=Fair-1, source=Queried, refid=tid=0001.0A0B0302.50812D11.0041, actions=tag X-Junkmail-Premium-Raw: score=9/50, refid=2.7.2:2012.10.19.100316:17:9.975, ip=81.149.51.65, rules=__HAS_FROM, __TO_MALFORMED_2, __TO_NO_NAME, __BOUNCE_CHALLENGE_SUBJ, __BOUNCE_NDR_SUBJ_EXEMPT, __SUBJ_ALPHA_END, __HAS_MSGID, __SANE_MSGID, __MIME_VERSION, __CT, __CTYPE_HAS_BOUNDARY, __CTYPE_MULTIPART, __CTYPE_MULTIPART_MIXED, __HAS_X_MAILER, __OUTLOOK_MUA_1, __USER_AGENT_MS_GENERIC, DOC_ATTACHED, __ANY_URI, URI_ENDS_IN_HTML, __FRAUD_CONTACT_NUM, __CP_URI_IN_BODY, __C230066_P5, __HTML_MSWORD, __HTML_FONT_BLUE, __EMBEDDED_IMG, __HAS_HTML, BODY_SIZE_10000_PLUS, BODYTEXTP_SIZE_3000_LESS, BODYTEXTH_SIZE_10000_LESS, __GIF_ATTACHED, GIF_VERSION89A, __GIF_WIDTH_100, GIF_GCT_NOTSORTED, __MIME_HTML, __IMGSPAM_BODY, __TAG_EXISTS_HTML, __STYLE_RATWARE_2, RDNS_GENERIC_POOLED, HTML_50_70, RDNS_SUSP_GENERIC, __OUTLOOK_MUA, RDNS_SUSP, FORGED_MUA_OUTLOOK, IMGSPAM_BODY X-Junkmail-Status: score=10/50, host=c2beaomr10.btconnect.com X-Junkmail-Signature-Raw: score=unknown, refid=str=0001.0A0B0207.50812D14.003C,ss=1,re=0.000,vtr=str,vl=0,fgs=0, ip=0.0.0.0, so=2011-07-25 19:15:43, dmn=2011-05-27 18:58:46, mode=multiengine X-Junkmail-IWF: false All . Attached is the revised resolution for SBVR Issue 16258 that deletes two Notes that discuss how time in statements relates to possible worlds, and adds the Note whose wording was agreed during the SBVR RTF telelcon discussion. Donald From: Juergen Boldt [mailto:juergen@omg.org] Sent: 26 May 2011 15:59 To: issues@omg.org; sbvr-rtf@omg.org Subject: issue 16258 -- SBVR RTF issue This is issue # 16258 A statement may express no proposition Subject: A statement may express no proposition X-KeepSent: 158D3F89:05C85004-85257896:006CF6C2; type=4; name=$KeepSent To: juergen@omg.org Cc: sbvr-rtf@omg.org X-Mailer: Lotus Notes Release 8.5.1FP5 SHF29 November 12, 2010 From: Mark H Linehan Date: Fri, 20 May 2011 16:07:31 -0400 X-MIMETrack: Serialize by Router on D01MC604/01/M/IBM(Release 8.5.2FP1 ZX852FP1HF6|May 2, 2011) at 05/20/2011 16:07:34 In clause 8.3.3, in the glossary entry for "statement", SBVR has the Necessity "Each statement expresses exactly one proposition ". This Necessity is also shown in figure 8.4 and is cited as an example on printed page 6. The issue is that some statements do not express propositions (i.e. a meaning that is true or false, per the definition of 'proposition' in 8.1.2). There are at least two types of statements that are neither true nor false: (a) paradoxes, such as "This statement is false"; (b) atemporal statements used with temporal worlds. For example, the statement "the board of director meets" is a proposition (i.e. either true or false) in an atemporal world (i.e.a world that only contains facts about one moment in time). But in a world that has records of multiple meetings of the board of directors, the statement is ambiguous. It can be understood as true if read as meaning "the board of directors meets at some time". It is either true or false (according to the facts in the world) if it is read as "the board of directors meets right now". Clearly a statement does not express a proposition when the statement is paradoxical or ambiguous. Suggested resolution: Revise the Necessity to read "Each statement expresses at most one proposition." Revise the figure and the example to match. -------------------------------- Mark H. Linehan STSM, Model Driven Business Transformation IBM Research Juergen Boldt Director, Member Services 140 Kendrick Street, Building A Suite 300 Needham, MA 02494 USA Tel: 781 444 0404 x 132 fax: 781 444 0320 www.omg.org X-Proofpoint-Virus-Version: vendor=fsecure engine=2.50.10432:5.7.7855,1.0.431,0.0.0000 definitions=2012-10-19_04:2012-10-19,2012-10-19,1970-01-01 signatures=0 X-Proofpoint-Spam-Details: rule=notspam policy=default score=0 spamscore=0 ipscore=0 suspectscore=0 phishscore=0 bulkscore=0 adultscore=0 classifier=spam adjust=0 reason=mlx scancount=1 engine=6.0.2-1203120001 definitions=main-1210190266 From: keri Subject: SBVR Issue 16258 - updated Figure Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2012 13:59:47 -0700 Cc: sbvr-rtf@omg.org To: Donald R Chapin X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1085) Donald, The Figure in the write-up for this Issue was an older version (before the change of "fact type" to "verb concept"). Here is this issue's update applied to the latest version of Figure 11.6. Content-type: application/msword; name="SBVR Issue 16258 'A Statement may Express No Proposition'(2012-10-19)" FINAL.doc" Content-disposition: attachment; filename*0="SBVR Issue 16258 'A Statement may Expres"; filename*1="s No Proposition'(2012-10-19) FINAL.doc" SBVR Issue 16258 'A Statement may Express No Proposition'(2012-10-19).doc ~ Keri