Issues for Semantics of Business Vocabulary & Business Rules Revision Task Force

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Issue 17451: New issue: Individual Verb Concept
Issue 17544: Eliminate Ambiguity from Two Interpretations for the Definition of Proposition

Issue 17451: New issue: Individual Verb Concept (sbvr-rtf)

OMG Issue No:  17451
Title:	Fix the anomaly in the subcategory structure of ‘concept’ to include ‘individual verb concept’ in SBVR
Source:
RuleML Initiative, John Hall, (john.hall@modelsystems.co.uk)
Summary:
SBVR handles noun concepts and verb concepts asymmetrically:
•	‘concept’ generalizes ‘noun concept’ and ‘verb concept’ 
•	‘noun concept’ generalizes ‘general concept’ and ‘individual concept’ – i.e. ‘general concept’ means ‘general noun concept’ and ‘individual concept’ means ‘individual noun concept’ 
There are no equivalents for ‘verb concept’. SBVR does not explicitly define ‘individual verb concept’, so cannot say:
•	‘individual concept’ generalizes ‘individual noun concept’ and ‘individual verb concept’ (inheriting from: ‘concept’ generalizes ‘noun concept’ and ‘verb concept’)
•	‘verb concept’ generalizes ‘general verb concept’ and ‘individual verb concept’ (paralleling: ‘noun concept’ generalizes ‘general noun concept’ and ‘individual noun concept’)
If it did, this structural inconsistency would be removed. 
It would also be helpful in using SBVR. Individual noun concepts, such as “EU-Rent” and “Luxembourg”, are useful in defining bodies of shared meanings in SBVR. If SBVR included ‘individual verb concept’, an SBVR body of shared meanings could include individual verb concepts such as “EU-Rent is incorporated in Luxembourg”. 
Resolution:
1.	Change the preferred term that is currently ‘individual concept’ to ‘individual noun concept’ to clarify that it applies to noun concepts only
2.	Add the concept ‘individual verb concept’ for a proposition that is a Clause 8 verb concept with all its roles quantified (closed) by individual (noun) concepts to fix the anomaly in the subcategory structure of ‘concept’.

Revised Text:
On printed page 22 in Clause 8.1.1 
REPLACE the current term heading “individual concept” WITH “individual noun concept” 

And REPLACE “concept”, the first term in the definition, WITH “noun concept”


On printed page 27 in Clause 8.1.2 at the end of the clause ADD this entry for ‘individual verb concept’:

individual verb concept

Definition:	proposition that is based on exactly one verb concept in which each verb concept role is filled by an individual noun concept
Note:	… some explanatory comments
Example:	… some illustrative examples


REPLACE the signifier “individual concept” WITH “individual noun concept” in the following places (but not in the “Source” subentry reference to ISO 1087-1 in entry for the concept current termed “individual concept’)

•	… to be identified and added 


REPLACE the following diagrams WITH diagrams that repolace the signifier “individual concept” with “individual noun concept”:

•	Figure 8.1
•	Figure 9.3
•	Figure 11.2

… plus fixes for any additional side effects:

Source:
Business Semantics Ltd, Donald Chapin, (Donald.Chapin@BusinessSemantics.com)
Summary:
In a recent SBVR RTF telecon it was discovered that that are two possible interpretations of the definition of ‘proposition’:
meaning that has a logical structure involving concepts and that corresponds to a state of affairs and that is either true or false based on whether that state of affairs is actual or not
The intended interpretation was that, to be a proposition, it must always in all possible worlds be able to be determined whether is it true or false, but that the assertion of that truth value is separate from the proposition, which SBVR defined to be a meaning.
The second interpretation is that the truth value is part of the proposition.
This ambiguity needs to be removed.
Resolution:
Clarify the entry for ‘proposition’ to remove the ambiguity.  Part of the exisitng definition, “and that corresponds to a state of affairs”, is included as the entry, ‘proposition corresponds to a state of affairs, with its own definition in the resolution to Issue 10803.
Revised Text:
REPLACE the current definition of ‘proposition’ in Clause 8.1.2 on printed page 26:
Definition:	meaning that has a logical structure involving concepts and that corresponds to a state of affairs and that is either true or false based on whether that state of affairs is actual or not
WITH:
Definition:	meaning of  a declarative sentence that is not a paradoxical and that is invariant through all the paraphrases and translations of the sentence
Note:	A wff is a special case of statement in which there are no free occurrences of any variable, i.e. either it has constants in place of variables, or its variables are bound, or both

  
ADD the following Source after the Definition in the entry for ‘proposition’ in Clause 8.1.2 on printed page 26:
Source:	[SubeGFOL]: proposition (2 & 3), Wff, Closed Wff

ADD the following Necessity after the newly added Source in the entry for ‘proposition’ in Clause 8.1.2 on printed page 26:
Necessity:	It is necessary that each proposition that is created by quantifying all the verb concept roles of a given verb concept means what the definition of the verb concept defines it to mean.
ADD the following Note after the last existing Note in the entry for ‘proposition’ in Clause 8.1.2 on printed page 26:
Note:	The truth-value of the proposition is separate from the proposition (i.e. the meaning of the statement). The proposition means the same thing regardless of the possible world that is referenced to determine the truth-value.  Documenting the truth-value of a proposition is out of scope for SBVR and belongs to the domain of data management or rules enforcement.