Issue 17269: Use of morphological variants of terms is inadequately addressed (sbvr-rtf) Source: NIST (Mr. Edward J. Barkmeyer, edbark(at)nist.gov) Nature: Uncategorized Issue Severity: Summary: SBVR apparently assume that business terms are composed of natural language words, and that those words may have multiple morphemes that are nonetheless the same word and the same term. That is, a vocabulary term like 'purchase contract' may also have the form 'purchase contracts', and a vocabulary term like 'is owned by' may be expressed as 'has been owned by'. But SBVR says nothing about any of this in defining 'designation' or 'signifier'. When a signifier for the same concept is in a formal language like OWL or CLIF, this idea of multiple morphemes is not (usually) part of the language syntax. So this should be carefully addressed. For the SBVR Structured English language, Annex C.1 explicitly says that these alternate morphemes are "implicitly available for use", which may mean they are treated as equivalent, or just that they are recognized as uses of the same designation. In natural language, such morphemes carry additional meaning , e.g., plurality or tense or mood. And a morphological variant of the same designation may or may not carry additional meaning, This is important, because SBVR examples assume that plurals are conventional and irrelevant, but the Date Time Vocabulary says that the use of verb tenses in natural language conveys indexical time intent. That is: 'John is in London' and 'John was in London' have different meanings in English. Do they have different meanings in SBVR SE? And if so, do they always have different meanings? Natural language convention requires that a statement that dates a past event uses the past tense, e.g., 'John was in London in 2008.' Is it meaningful in SBVR SE to say (in 2012) 'John is in London in 2008'? And does that mean a different proposition from 'John was in London in 2008'? Resolution: Revised Text: Actions taken: March 23, 2012: received issue Discussion: End of Annotations:===== m: Ed Barkmeyer To: "issues@omg.org" Subject: SBVR Issue -- Use of morphological variants of terms is inadequately addressed Specification: Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Rules (SBVR) Version: 1.1 Title: Use of morphological variants of terms is inadequately addressed Source: Ed Barkmeyer, NIST, edbark@nist.gov' Summary: SBVR apparently assume that business terms are composed of natural language words, and that those words may have multiple morphemes that are nonetheless the same word and the same term. That is, a vocabulary term like 'purchase contract' may also have the form 'purchase contracts', and a vocabulary term like 'is owned by' may be expressed as 'has been owned by'. But SBVR says nothing about any of this in defining 'designation' or 'signifier'. When a signifier for the same concept is in a formal language like OWL or CLIF, this idea of multiple morphemes is not (usually) part of the language syntax. So this should be carefully addressed. For the SBVR Structured English language, Annex C.1 explicitly says that these alternate morphemes are "implicitly available for use", which may mean they are treated as equivalent, or just that they are recognized as uses of the same designation. In natural language, such morphemes carry additional meaning , e.g., plurality or tense or mood. And a morphological variant of the same designation may or may not carry additional meaning, This is important, because SBVR examples assume that plurals are conventional and irrelevant, but the Date Time Vocabulary says that the use of verb tenses in natural language conveys indexical time intent. That is: 'John is in London' and 'John was in London' have different meanings in English. Do they have different meanings in SBVR SE? And if so, do they always have different meanings? Natural language convention requires that a statement that dates a past event uses the past tense, e.g., 'John was in London in 2008.' Is it meaningful in SBVR SE to say (in 2012) 'John is in London in 2008'? And does that mean a different proposition from 'John was in London in 2008'? X-Yahoo-Newman-Id: 6536.75919.bm@omp1030.access.mail.mud.yahoo.com DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=yahoo.com; s=s1024; t=1333118222; bh=/OXwqJ3GcGT2T396Rlb7kUa61aICfAf8+rXJ91zFuO0=; h=Message-ID:X-Yahoo-Newman-Property:X-YMail-OSG:X-Yahoo-SMTP:Received:X-Mailer:Date:To:From:Subject:In-Reply-To:References:Mime-Version:Content-Type; b=iWLUFJDzO9Y3YK5iOl+7RoiUtPLeOUPN4MSE+D9ga1gKpraQ3Y/p4Zt/ZdaUqk7n5tuanclzp8bSKBCo14Crgutz377i1J2Lyhs9dzrEFuXlVbL+9d+21mhbZwk5TjBoM7fAJRFpPEQPhC+FwUYb//gogS3Zf17l5GV75gESq44= X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: ymail-3 X-YMail-OSG: 09wO.ycVM1lY0Z1XKOmf0gMKXBqpAS0FdlxL9REWo.7GAxq 6VZyiSqo1kfrSb2nPQhA4Q7BvxY5DMAXKvErj_BzUTt6CjzFEFfnipTCzYGl pOTK2t5nnqOM1mKRafuhI7Jjf6i2SkvNJZq1VAD7jmXPz4z_G02xsetDCFz5 PRShjQfe.O8C2x_BDXoAnqSQi9exw9PuA6JU13LWQ4GG7sbrBl2DRXYrPPwS NwLIkO8hGuehtAr36hFl6spBvK8XUjIXd7KuJtAaV0HZCzeSgUqBWoKxkucE jWWhq7Z8_VikgNjdq6xIHn0vVh3HxCKVwKHkVl70DjymQJcepcSdSyDp1FRc QYPP1wSU5j3iKfTtJTMeD6tRt8njYoa6zchFyyfk3_UPIL8fp0lZU4GANK8p WYdkHLRxJ5ZCdrht4F12Mf7GPu.REDyiTpeeM2RmgnuMetKLjdy4Z4E0q_vE 19Fy85xmmZZEWW_VdXA4N1552n3h_7y6zYafW8iWbL5cVKMZR4pe02AkKy0g 7DMTroTBHkJlfaAzcrsiN2SGpxdcUemsZXO4jbYZCftloHJw_M3JsO6FkgMs tiz7s7vUltvld4JzvN4n_SPuoW6oGcIQZqbQI2SqZvPIq7tFEb_8Hx4x6378 d1HVBdkCf7VHEsKMg4f6wXtYBxAnz45L221bk6qeFgCWrKkqCJUi8rLDf04H Dw3.NpPU4C6IXZfNbubTlhYSHzhFhFeY- X-Yahoo-SMTP: MhfrpU2swBDLgYiYhNQDHBu0cE4o.vu2We1FRN9o X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 7.1.0.9 Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2012 09:36:49 -0500 To: sbvr-rtf@omg.org From: "Ronald G. Ross" Subject: Re: issue 17269 -- SBVR RTF issue Ed, I understand Chinese has no tenses. So I am concerned about getting into the meaning of different verb forms (e.g., as in English). That's not to say there isn't some valid time-related issue here ... but merely to suggest that perhaps it shouldn't be cast as a matter of verb concepts. Ron At 08:29 AM 3/30/2012, Juergen Boldt wrote: Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2012 15:34:22 -0400 From: Ed Barkmeyer Reply-To: "Barkmeyer, Edward J" , edbark@nist.gov Organization: NIST User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (Windows/20090812) To: "issues@omg.org" Subject: SBVR Issue -- Use of morphological variants of terms is inadequately addressed X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-Information: Please contact postmaster@mel.nist.gov for more information X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-ID: q2NJYRoC006570 X-NISTMEL-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-SpamCheck: X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-From: edbark@nist.gov X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-Watermark: 1333136069.16399@cHbA2le1yo6vL2gz9/r0QQ X-Spam-Status: No X-NIST-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-NIST-MailScanner-From: edbark@nist.gov Specification: Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Rules (SBVR) Version: 1.1 Title: Use of morphological variants of terms is inadequately addressed Source: Ed Barkmeyer, NIST, edbark@nist.gov' Summary: SBVR apparently assume that business terms are composed of natural language words, and that those words may have multiple morphemes that are nonetheless the same word and the same term. That is, a vocabulary term like 'purchase contract' may also have the form 'purchase contracts', and a vocabulary term like 'is owned by' may be expressed as 'has been owned by'. But SBVR says nothing about any of this in defining 'designation' or 'signifier'. When a signifier for the same concept is in a formal language like OWL or CLIF, this idea of multiple morphemes is not (usually) part of the language syntax. So this should be carefully addressed. For the SBVR Structured English language, Annex C.1 explicitly says that these alternate morphemes are "implicitly available for use", which may mean they are treated as equivalent, or just that they are recognized as uses of the same designation. In natural language, such morphemes carry additional meaning , e.g., plurality or tense or mood. And a morphological variant of the same designation may or may not carry additional meaning, This is important, because SBVR examples assume that plurals are conventional and irrelevant, but the Date Time Vocabulary says that the use of verb tenses in natural language conveys indexical time intent. That is: 'John is in London' and 'John was in London' have different meanings in English. Do they have different meanings in SBVR SE? And if so, do they always have different meanings? Natural language convention requires that a statement that dates a past event uses the past tense, e.g., 'John was in London in 2008.' Is it meaningful in SBVR SE to say (in 2012) 'John is in London in 2008'? And does that mean a different proposition from 'John was in London in 2008'? -- Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@nist.gov National Institute of Standards & Technology Systems Integration Division 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 Cel: +1 240-672-5800 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 Blog || http://www.RonRoss.info/blog/ LinkedIn || http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ronald-ross/1/3b/346 Twitter || https://twitter.com/Ronald_G_Ross Homepage || http://www.RonRoss.info Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2012 12:13:16 -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: "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" , Stan Hendryx Subject: Re: issue 17269 -- SBVR RTF issue X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-Information: Please contact postmaster@mel.nist.gov for more information X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-ID: q2UGDMnn012997 X-NISTMEL-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-SpamCheck: X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-From: edbark@nist.gov X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-Watermark: 1333728808.78665@hNXKIFfBJqXWaXzb35X+Tg X-Spam-Status: No X-NIST-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-NIST-MailScanner-From: edbark@nist.gov Ronald G. Ross wrote: Ed, I understand Chinese has no tenses. So I am concerned about getting into the meaning of different verb forms (e.g., as in English). That's not to say there isn't some valid time-related issue here ... but merely to suggest that perhaps it shouldn't be cast as a matter of verb concepts. Well, first, SBVR is not written in Chinese; it is written in SBVR SE, and Annex C waves its hands about word forms in SBVR SE. Languages like CLIF and OWL don't have morphological variants of terms at all. So we have to ask ourselves whether the morphological variants of SBVR SE terms carry additional information that must be codified in such formal languages. Second, DTV explicitly assigns distinct meaning to various tense-related verb forms. So we have to know whether DTV is extending SBVR SE in this area. (I think it does.) Third, Mark and Stan seem to think that there is a difference between "John is in London in 2008" and "John was in London in 2008", assigning meaning to "is" versus "was" in SBVR SE. The first of those sentences is not proper English in 2012, it is only a sentence in SBVR SE; and it is not clear that the second sentence is valid SBVR SE at all. The DTV issue is whether there is a requirement to capture the implied indexical metadata about the timing of the utterance as part of the meaning of the utterance -- whether the formulation of the second sentence must contain the statement that "John is in London" is in the past relative to the time of the utterance. (NIST has a serious problem with conflating source and timing metadata with the meaning of an utterance, and particularly with the required inclusion of indexical metadata.) So the first step is to make clear what is intended by SBVR SE (rather than English or Chinese) in this area. That will enable us to determine whether DTV is changing, extending or refining the SBVR SE "specification". If in fact, everyone agrees that the two sentences above have different meanings in SBVR SE, then they both have to be allowed, even though only one of them is English. While you lot are all about how humans will interpret this, my community is all about how machine reasoners are required to interpret this. Standard or not, SBVR SE is being used as a formal language in DTV and elsewhere. This is why we have issues about the use of markup in exported definitions and rules. The DTV does not contain LRMV XML for its definitions and rules; it only contains SBVR SE, OCL and CLIF. SBVR SE is for people; OCL and CLIF are for tools. So SBVR SE must be better defined. -Ed Ron At 08:29 AM 3/30/2012, Juergen Boldt wrote: Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2012 15:34:22 -0400 From: Ed Barkmeyer Reply-To: "Barkmeyer, Edward J" , edbark@nist.gov Organization: NIST User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (Windows/20090812) To: "issues@omg.org" Subject: SBVR Issue -- Use of morphological variants of terms is inadequately addressed X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-Information: Please contact postmaster@mel.nist.gov for more information X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-ID: q2NJYRoC006570 X-NISTMEL-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-SpamCheck: X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-From: edbark@nist.gov X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-Watermark: 1333136069.16399@cHbA2le1yo6vL2gz9/r0QQ X-Spam-Status: No X-NIST-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-NIST-MailScanner-From: edbark@nist.gov Specification: Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Rules (SBVR) Version: 1.1 Title: Use of morphological variants of terms is inadequately addressed Source: Ed Barkmeyer, NIST, edbark@nist.gov' Summary: SBVR apparently assume that business terms are composed of natural language words, and that those words may have multiple morphemes that are nonetheless the same word and the same term. That is, a vocabulary term like 'purchase contract' may also have the form 'purchase contracts', and a vocabulary term like 'is owned by' may be expressed as 'has been owned by'. But SBVR says nothing about any of this in defining 'designation' or 'signifier'. When a signifier for the same concept is in a formal language like OWL or CLIF, this idea of multiple morphemes is not (usually) part of the language syntax. So this should be carefully addressed. For the SBVR Structured English language, Annex C.1 explicitly says that these alternate morphemes are "implicitly available for use", which may mean they are treated as equivalent, or just that they are recognized as uses of the same designation. In natural language, such morphemes carry additional meaning , e.g., plurality or tense or mood. And a morphological variant of the same designation may or may not carry additional meaning, This is important, because SBVR examples assume that plurals are conventional and irrelevant, but the Date Time Vocabulary says that the use of verb tenses in natural language conveys indexical time intent. That is: 'John is in London' and 'John was in London' have different meanings in English. Do they have different meanings in SBVR SE? And if so, do they always have different meanings? Natural language convention requires that a statement that dates a past event uses the past tense, e.g., 'John was in London in 2008.' Is it meaningful in SBVR SE to say (in 2012) 'John is in London in 2008'? And does that mean a different proposition from 'John was in London in 2008'? -- Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@nist.gov National Institute of Standards & Technology Systems Integration Division 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 Cel: +1 240-672-5800 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 [] [Ronald G. Ross Contact Information] http://www.brsolutions.com/email/wordpress-2.png *Blog* || http://www.RonRoss.info/blog/ http://www.brsolutions.com/email/linkedin.png *LinkedIn* || http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ronald-ross/1/3b/346 http://www.brsolutions.com/email/twitter.png *Twitter* || https://twitter.com/Ronald_G_Ross http://www.brsolutions.com/email/button-green.png *Homepage* || http://www.RonRoss.info -- 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: 590987.5243.bm@omp1015.access.mail.mud.yahoo.com DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=yahoo.com; s=s1024; t=1333295165; bh=VuBUs5gjJfAQWPDhyXpPXMiumd+9sJ4cwPYGlwuVHIM=; h=Message-ID:X-Yahoo-Newman-Property:X-YMail-OSG:X-Yahoo-SMTP:Received:X-Mailer:Date:To:From:Subject:Cc:In-Reply-To:References:Mime-Version:Content-Type; b=2iiZjN8AaSn7nOmYXtDl+cOhcVuoofw0nU6xUKGQWTNkLRhjeg1625gJTg54UtOtirCWbHJ6fP0DcGct7gSuWuIL550tE9tP/hTCByHhaEbor1QfSia1BUqh0Jnc/FpfFMj+NTws63KHMi80eihcQ1O3exYPoxblMtkpPNg+ABg= X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: ymail-3 X-YMail-OSG: _vkcFakVM1nn4RRmv1f4ruYusZc6sevnL5lAFEwc4zRhlI1 lfKx9SmdQ2rFdRPQVuYckM3eAKG2FfwnG3Itbe8x2PTnDWGfSvfGo0Ow9dEt V4ulZJunE6IWj4iuwZbu.KVP0PyR0Suube3VgXxbuXXdiFrJ0lUZlLF0m4qs ZMVvcrDmTGPTSpaM_T0F3sLP6YBOYjQfRtB4gXltt4zxaXugoTPB1QexgFHY WsgWvntAjcq.m6LMd0AUfc5thBOg0ndIcHjZrg49xWbt2aW5fOLThFkS7NG3 vZ74cWPx0Krb8vOiV0zbSasxGA0Kpi1cnC.legt5E1Y6jpd5Wzs2qT6ODF0w LVfjScfYxuZeeGcykzvtT3hY3wbtEONjySIFYomkfXLGynsxkJyJPmP5hbMG KeSklfCv3OwTosCl1JHypwM3ipJ9ji5pFOyPb8jxW3RjtvH3j.mDz498WJy5 nHKvbVJzIMHy5B9Q2RTqSmCr5VZswnjrRhUVBAyp03kTu6y.2wTYQ1D0r6mQ .IMGQTVJItGaKwhw1baotQCfK8HYjk7vbfe7Vk5TJPo8BLl6fQ7cAzcG9qhn TPpeVwoFuoqnz6wW1fm_dqmsjLllVn8yl7Dx0LxgU.FP5aqjke3G8WAyBzbK U6VIVWeeo0NDsfcKHFvgwq.bWSzUtXhV3hCtzrrpnTjHBE1QZND.OnjxSWtL _msSs7oUQHZrrYA4qVNQ69vkFLBHs5ryF X-Yahoo-SMTP: MhfrpU2swBDLgYiYhNQDHBu0cE4o.vu2We1FRN9o X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 7.1.0.9 Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2012 10:45:51 -0500 To: edbark@nist.gov From: "Ronald G. Ross" Subject: Re: issue 17269 -- SBVR RTF issue Cc: "sbvr-rtf@omg.org" , Stan Hendryx At 11:13 AM 3/30/2012, Ed Barkmeyer wrote: Ronald G. Ross wrote: Ed, I understand Chinese has no tenses. So I am concerned about getting into the meaning of different verb forms (e.g., as in English). That's not to say there isn't some valid time-related issue here ... but merely to suggest that perhaps it shouldn't be cast as a matter of verb concepts. Well, first, SBVR is not written in Chinese; it is written in SBVR SE, and Annex C waves its hands about word forms in SBVR SE. Languages like CLIF and OWL don't have morphological variants of terms at all. So we have to ask ourselves whether the morphological variants of SBVR SE terms carry additional information that must be codified in such formal languages. --> SBVR was always intended to be a model, not a notation. So it would seem to me the question is not about 'morphological variants of SBVR SE terms', but rather whether the model has the semantics needed irrespective of natural language. For example, I presume in Chinese you would say something like: A rental car must be inspected for water damage at least once after September 15, 2008 if the rental car **is** in the Houston area Sept 10-15, 2008. (That's when Hurricane Ike hit town.) My point is that saying "is" or "was" is immaterial to the meaning. The appropriate choice is based on the grammar rules of the natural language. (But read on.) Second, DTV explicitly assigns distinct meaning to various tense-related verb forms. So we have to know whether DTV is extending SBVR SE in this area. (I think it does.) --> Since SBVR doesn't standardize notation, I think the answer is unclear. Third, Mark and Stan seem to think that there is a difference between "John is in London in 2008" and "John was in London in 2008", assigning meaning to "is" versus "was" in SBVR SE. The first of those sentences is not proper English in 2012, it is only a sentence in SBVR SE; and it is not clear that the second sentence is valid SBVR SE at all. The DTV issue is whether there is a requirement to capture the implied indexical metadata about the timing of the utterance as part of the meaning of the utterance --> To express business rules properly, nothing should ever be implicit. Any kind of discourse indexicals are to be avoided. If there is any doubt about meaning, SBVR tooling should 'ask' (or fall back on well-documented defaults). Can you give me an example of "implied indexical metadata" likely to be evident in either definitions or business rules? I think that would help inform the discussion. -- whether the formulation of the second sentence must contain the statement that "John is in London" is in the past relative to the time of the utterance. (NIST has a serious problem with conflating source and timing metadata with the meaning of an utterance, and particularly with the required inclusion of indexical metadata.) So the first step is to make clear what is intended by SBVR SE (rather than English or Chinese) in this area. That will enable us to determine whether DTV is changing, extending or refining the SBVR SE "specification". If in fact, everyone agrees that the two sentences above have different meanings in SBVR SE, then they both have to be allowed, even though only one of them is English. --> Is the distinction the following? (If not what?) * In one form John's presence in London was clearly over at some point in time. * In the other, John's presence was more or less continuous, habitual, or intermittent without a definite ending point. English doesn't really make that distinction in verb tense alone (you have to add extra words), but Spanish and other languages do. I'd like to see a sample, real-life business rule that needs the distinction. It's possible ... I just can't think of one off the top of my head. What examples have been used? Assuming there's a business-rule need for the distinction, SBVR should support it. As to SBVR-SE, instead of bastardizing English, how about adding a qualifier: * was [definite timing] * was [indefinite timing] For example, my sample business rule from earlier might be written: A rental car must be inspected for water damage at least once after September 15, 2008 if the rental car was [indefinite timing] in the Houston area Sept 10-15, 2008. [However, for the intent of this business rule, I have to say the extra precision isn't really relevant.] While you lot are all about how humans will interpret this, my community is all about how machine reasoners are required to interpret this. Standard or not, SBVR SE is being used as a formal language in DTV and elsewhere. This is why we have issues about the use of markup in exported definitions and rules. The DTV does not contain LRMV XML for its definitions and rules; it only contains SBVR SE, OCL and CLIF. SBVR SE is for people; --> SBVR-SE is for a certain very small-ish class of skilled professionals, not for the masses of people. Ron OCL and CLIF are for tools. So SBVR SE must be better defined. -Ed Ron At 08:29 AM 3/30/2012, Juergen Boldt wrote: Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2012 15:34:22 -0400 From: Ed Barkmeyer Reply-To: "Barkmeyer, Edward J" , edbark@nist.gov Organization: NIST User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (Windows/20090812) To: "issues@omg.org" Subject: SBVR Issue -- Use of morphological variants of terms is inadequately addressed X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-Information: Please contact postmaster@mel.nist.gov for more information X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-ID: q2NJYRoC006570 X-NISTMEL-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-SpamCheck: X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-From: edbark@nist.gov X-NISTMEL-MailScanner-Watermark: 1333136069.16399@cHbA2le1yo6vL2gz9/r0QQ X-Spam-Status: No X-NIST-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-NIST-MailScanner-From: edbark@nist.gov Specification: Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Rules (SBVR) Version: 1.1 Title: Use of morphological variants of terms is inadequately addressed Source: Ed Barkmeyer, NIST, edbark@nist.gov' Summary: SBVR apparently assume that business terms are composed of natural language words, and that those words may have multiple morphemes that are nonetheless the same word and the same term. That is, a vocabulary term like 'purchase contract' may also have the form 'purchase contracts', and a vocabulary term like 'is owned by' may be expressed as 'has been owned by'. But SBVR says nothing about any of this in defining 'designation' or 'signifier'. When a signifier for the same concept is in a formal language like OWL or CLIF, this idea of multiple morphemes is not (usually) part of the language syntax. So this should be carefully addressed. For the SBVR Structured English language, Annex C.1 explicitly says that these alternate morphemes are "implicitly available for use", which may mean they are treated as equivalent, or just that they are recognized as uses of the same designation. In natural language, such morphemes carry additional meaning , e.g., plurality or tense or mood. And a morphological variant of the same designation may or may not carry additional meaning, This is important, because SBVR examples assume that plurals are conventional and irrelevant, but the Date Time Vocabulary says that the use of verb tenses in natural language conveys indexical time intent. That is: 'John is in London' and 'John was in London' have different meanings in English. Do they have different meanings in SBVR SE? And if so, do they always have different meanings? Natural language convention requires that a statement that dates a past event uses the past tense, e.g., 'John was in London in 2008.' Is it meaningful in SBVR SE to say (in 2012) 'John is in London in 2008'? And does that mean a different proposition from 'John was in London in 2008'? -- Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@nist.gov National Institute of Standards & Technology Systems Integration Division 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 Cel: +1 240-672-5800 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 [] < http://www.omg.org/signature.htm> < http://www.omg.org/signature.htm> [Ronald G. 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