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Do all ontologies that import 'owl' or 'rdf', implement 'domain', 'range' and other related predicates?


Sorry if this is a noob's and simple question, but it will help me resolve a conceptual confusion of mine! I have some guesses, but want to make sure.

I got the location of a part of brain via NeuroFMA ontology and the query below:

PREFIX fma: <http://sig.uw.edu/fma#>
 
 select ?loc{
 fma:Superior_temporal_gyrus fma:location ?loc}  

The result was: fma:live_incus_fm_14056

I thought I might be able to get some more information on this item.

Question 1: Was there a difference if the result was a literal?

So, I used optional {?loc ?p ?o} and got some results.

However, I thought since this ontology also imported RDF and OWL, the following queries should work too, but it was not the case (hopefully these codes are correct)!

    optional {?value rdfs:range ?loc}
    optional {?loc rdfs:domain ?value}
    optional {?loc rdf:type ?value}

Question 2 If the above queries are correct, are RDFS and OWL just a suggestion? Or do ontologies that import/ follow them have to use all their resources or at least expand on them?

Thanks!


Solution

  • An import declaration in OWL is, for the most part, just informative. It is typically used to signal that this ontology re-uses some of the concepts defined in the target (for example, it could define some additional subclasses of classes defined in the target data).

    Whether the import results in any additional data being loaded into your dataset depends on what database/API/reasoner you use to process the ontology. Most tools don't automatically load the targets of import declarations, by default, so the presence or absence of the import-declaration will have no influence on what your queries return.

    I thought since this ontology also imported RDF and OWL, the following queries should work too, but it was not the case (hopefully these codes are correct)!

    optional {?value rdfs:range ?loc}
    optional {?loc rdfs:domain ?value}
    optional {?loc rdfs:type ?value}
    

    It's rdf:type, not rdfs:type. Apart from that, each of these individually look fine. However, judging from your broader query, ?loc is usually not a property, but a property value. Property values don't have domains and ranges. You could query for something like this, possibly:

     optional { fma:location rdfs:domain ?value}
    

    This asks "if the property fma:location has a domain declaration, return that declaration and bind it to the ?value variable".

    More generally, whether these queries return any results has little or nothing to do with what import declaration are present in your ontology. If your ontology contains a range declaration for a property, the first pattern will return a result. If it contains a domain declaration, the second one will return a result. And finally, if your ontology contains an instance of some class, the third pattern (corrected) will return a result. It's as simple as that.

    There is no magic here: the query only returns what is present in your dataset. What is present in your dataset is determined by how you have loaded the data into your database, and (optionally) what form of reasoner you have enabled on top of your database.