RDFS subclass: property redefinition

StackOverflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10945953

  •  13-06-2021
  •  | 
  •  

Question

Toy example:

Consider the following types:

  • Hamburger, Veggieburger, Component, Vegetable, Meat

Where

  • Veggieburger is subclass_of Hamburger
  • Vegetable and meat are subclasses of Component

Consider the following property:

  • Has_component: domain = Hamburger, range = Component

Now, I want to redefine Has_component on the Veggieburger and indicate that is can only contain vegetable Components.

Is there a way to redefine (i.e. override) the property Has_component?

Was it helpful?

Solution

If you are only willing to use RDFS, then might I suggest the following:

@prefix menu: <http://yourdomain/menu#>.
@prefix rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#>.
@prefix rdf: <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#>.

menu:Burger rdf:type rdfs:Class.

menu:Veggieburger rdf:type rdfs:Class;
                  rdfs:subClassOf menu:Burger.

menu:Hamburger rdf:type rdfs:Class;
               rdfs:subClassOf menu:Burger.

menu:Component rdf:type rdfs:Class.

menu:VeggieComponent rdf:type rdfs:Class;
                     rdfs:subClassOf menu:Component.

menu:MeatComponent rdf:type rdfs:Class;
                   rdfs:subClassOf menu:Component.

#use camel casing for property names
menu:hasComponent rdf:type rdf:Property;
                  rdfs:domain menu:Burger;
                  rdfs:range menu:Component.

menu:hasMeatComponent rdf:type rdf:Property;
                  rdfs:subPropertyOf menu:hasComponent;
                  rdfs:domain menu:MeatBurger;
                  rdfs:range menu:MeatComponent.

menu:hasVeggieComponent rdf:type rdf:Property;
                  rdfs:domain menu:VeggieBurger;
                  rdfs:subPropertyOf menu:hasComponent;
                  rdfs:range menu:VeggieComponent.

OTHER TIPS

You can add another pair domain/range axioms in RDFS, a reasoner will interpret the actual range as the intersection of the two classes, Component & VeggieComponent, which in this instance is ok. In some cases, that'd be undesirable, so keep that in mind.

You could also do this with OWL & a restriction to get what you want, ala

VeggieBurger subClassOf some(HasComponent, VeggieComponent)

Licensed under: CC-BY-SA with attribution
Not affiliated with StackOverflow
scroll top