Commons Designators Ontology
type: Ontology
abstract: The designators ontology defines commonly used concepts for naming, derived in part from the patterns defined in ISO 1087 for terminology work and ISO 11179-3, Metadata Registries. It includes several very high level semiotic relationships, including defines, describes, and denotes for associating designators with the concepts they reference.
contributor: Davide Sottara, Mayo Clinic
contributor: Dean Allemang, Working Ontologist
contributor: Elisa Kendall, Thematix Partners LLC
contributor: Pete Rivett, Federated Knowledge, LLC
license: Copyright (c) 2014-2024 Thematix Partners LLC Copyright (c) 2021-2024 agnos.ai U.K. Ltd Copyright (c) 2021-2024 Federated Knowledge, LLC Copyright (c) 2021-2024 Mayo Clinic Copyright (c) 2022-2024 Object Management Group, Inc. Copyright (c) 2021-2024 Working Ontologist LLC Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the 'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. See https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT.
imports: AnnotationVocabulary
imports: TextDatatype
version IRI: Designators
change note: The https://www.omg.org/spec/Commons/20220501/Designators.rdf version of this ontology was modified to eliminate a double space in the abstract and a note on Designation (COMMONS-6) and to clarify the definition of designation, denotes, and name, and better align them with ISO 704 / ISO 1087 (COMMONS-26).
change note: The https://www.omg.org/spec/Commons/20221101/Designators.rdf version of this ontology was modified to add a textual name datatype property needed to represent language and country specific text names per ISO 639 and ISO 3166 for LCC (COMMONS-12-8).
note: The designators ontology conforms with the OWL 2 DL semantics, and is outside of OWL 2 RL due to the inclusion of one minimum cardinality constraint (which is tyically ignored, but is important - see note on the Designator class) and two value restrictions. These constraints can be removed if required to support OWL RL rule-based applications that cannot be extended to support them.
copyright: Copyright (c) 2014-2024 Thematix Partners LLC
copyright: Copyright (c) 2021-2024 Federated Knowledge, LLC
copyright: Copyright (c) 2021-2024 Mayo Clinic
copyright: Copyright (c) 2021-2024 Working Ontologist LLC
copyright: Copyright (c) 2021-2024 agnos.ai U.K. Ltd
copyright: Copyright (c) 2022-2024 Object Management Group, Inc.

designation
type: Class
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: hasTextValue
  min qualified cardinality: 0
  on data range: Text
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: denotes
  some values from: Thing
definition: representation for something, or for a conceptualization thereof, that denotes it in a domain or subject
note: A designation can be a term including appellations, a proper name, or a symbol.
note: A designation can be linguistic or non-linguistic. It can consist of various types of characters, but also punctuation marks such as hyphens and parentheses, governed by domain-, subject-, or language-specific conventions.
note: Note that the use of the min 0 cardinality restriction in the definition of this class is provided as a reminder that designators are expected, in many cases, to have a text value associated with them. There are cases where this is not true, however, including symbols. And, there may be cases where the value is not known. Additionally, not all tools support rdf:langString, thus its use in the definition of the Text datatype may cause errors, for example in value and some number restrictions. Min 0 cardinality constraints are ignored by reasoners and other processors, so this allows us to say that the possible values for this property are likely either xsd:string or rdf:langString, but does not require it depending on the environment in which the ontology is deployed.
adapted from: ISO 1087 Terminology work and terminology science - Vocabulary, Second edition, 2019-09, clause 3.4.1
adapted from: ISO 704 Terminology work - Principles and methods, Fourth edition, 2022-07, Figure 1
synonym: designator

name
type: Class
subclass of: designation
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: is name of
  some values from: Thing
definition: designation for something by a linguistic expression
note: In ISO 1087, a name may be an appellation and is defined as a term that is applied to a group of objects whose relevant properties are identical, whereas a proper name is a designation that represents an individual object.
adapted from: ISO/IEC 11179-3 Information technology - Metadata registries (MDR) - Registry metamodel and basic attributes, Third edition, 2013-02-15, clause 3.2.83
explanatory note: Note that unlike symbols and other designations, a name is explicitly not linguistically neutral.

defines
type: ObjectProperty
inverse of: is defined in
definition: specifies the meaning of something in terms of one or more of its essential qualities
note: A quality is an elementary characteristic of something. An 'essential quality' is one that provides a necessary criteria for being that thing and differentiating criteria for not being something else.

denotes
type: ObjectProperty
domain: designation
definition: serves as a sign for something, or for a conceptualization thereof
note: Note that in some references, such as the semiotics ontology from Ontology Design Patterns,'denotes' can be used to talk about e.g. entities denoted by proper nouns: the proper noun 'Leonardo da Vinci' denotes the person Leonardo da Vinci; as well as to talk about sets of entities that can be described by a common noun: the common noun 'person' denotes the collection of all persons in a domain of discourse. Other references that may be useful for interpreting 'denotes' include OntoLex. The interpretation of 'denotes' in this context is more general, but intended to reflect its usage in the semiotic triangle.
scope note: This property could be specialized to differentiate the notion of referring to something, i.e., a referent, from the notion of evoking a concept. Consider that in OntoLex, the term denotes is used to designate the sign referent relationship specifically, which in ISO 704:2022 is called 'refers to' in Figure 1. This definition is also meant to cover the OntoLex notion of evokes, which in ISO 704:2022 is called designates or represents.
adapted from: ISO 1087 Terminology work and terminology science - Vocabulary, Second edition, 2019-09, clause 3.4.1
adapted from: ISO 704 Terminology work - Principles and methods, Fourth edition, 2022-07, Figure 1

describes
type: ObjectProperty
inverse of: is described by
definition: conveys the nature of

has description
type: DatatypeProperty
sub property of: hasTextValue
definition: provides a textual statement, picture in words, or account that describes something
note: Note that the hasDescription property defined herein has an implicit range of rdfs:Literal. This is purposeful, so that users can specify any element that has a name with or without a language tag without concern for conflicting datatypes (i.e., xsd:string vs. rdf:langString, which are logically disjoint).

has name
type: ObjectProperty
sub property of: is signified by
range: name
inverse of: is name of
definition: is known by

has textual name
type: DatatypeProperty
sub property of: hasTextValue
definition: associates a name, reference name, or appellation with an individual concept
note: Note that the hasTextualName property defined herein has an implicit range of rdfs:Literal. This is purposeful, so that users can specify any element that has a name with or without a language tag without concern for conflicting datatypes (i.e., xsd:string vs. rdf:langString, which are logically disjoint).
adapted from: ISO 639:2023 Code for individual languages and language groups, Second edition, 2023-11

is defined in
type: ObjectProperty
definition: indicates something that specifies the meaning associated with the subject
note: Typically, a concept, such as a classifier or identifier, will be defined in terms of a scheme, contract, specification, standard, or other reference.

is described by
type: ObjectProperty
definition: has general nature or description of

is name of
type: ObjectProperty
sub property of: denotes
domain: name
definition: denotes in some context

is signified by
type: ObjectProperty
range: designation
inverse of: denotes
definition: has representation, denotation or sign of