CODEWITHSUNDEEP
owlrdfs
Nicholas Hubbard
Nicholas Hubbard

Reputation: 537

How can owl:equivalentClass be defined in terms of owl:symmetricProperty, rdfs:subPropertyOf, and rdfs:subClassOf?

In reading the book Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist I have come across an example that I cannot wrap my head around.

owl:equivalenceClass can be defined in terms of these two triples:

owl:equivalentClass rdf:type owl:symmetricProperty.
owl:equivalentClass rdfs:subPropertyOf rdfs:subClassOf.

I could use help understanding this.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 233

Answers (1)

Nicholas Hubbard
Nicholas Hubbard

Reputation: 537

The first triple says that if a property P is a owl:symmetricProperty than we can infer the triple P owl:inverseOf P.

The second triple says that if a property P is a subPropertyOf Q then from A P B we can infer A Q B.

If a class C is a subclass of D then from x rdf:type C we can infer x rdf:type D. Now lets put it all together with owl:equivalentClass:

Because owl:equivalentClass is a rdfs:subPropertyOf rdfs:subClassOf then whenever we have A owl:equivalentClass B we can infer A subClassOf B, and because owl:equivalentClass is a symmetricProperty we can also infer B subClassOf A.

Upvotes: 1

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