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| - Sparrow is an ontology syntax and language that is meant as a "lightweight" alternative to RDF/S and OWL. This document describes the basic syntax of sparrow. |
| + Sparrow is a description-logic syntax that is meant as a "lightweight" alternative to RDF/S and OWL for defining ontologies. This document details the sparrow syntax. Note that in terms of expressivity, sparrow lies between RDF/S and OWL-DL. |
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| - !!! Basic Sparrow |
| + !!! Sparrow |
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| - Concepts and roles in sparrow are defined using sentences. We assume two special concepts {{sparrow:top}} and {{sparrow:bottom}}, which are typically found in most ontology languages. The term {{sparrow:top}} consists of the {{sparrow}} namespace and the atomic term (concept) {{top}}. A new concept can be defined by an expression: |
| + Sparrow, like description logics, represent ontologies using concepts, roles, and individuals. We desribe each of these below. |
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| + !! Concepts |
| + |
| + In sparrow, concepts are defined using ''sentences.'' For instance, we can introduce a new concept called 'Vegetarian' using the following sentence. |
| + |
| + {{{ |
| + concept Vegetarian |
| + }}} |
| + |
| + This sentence simply states that the 'Vegetarian' is a concept. Note that the term 'concept' is a reserved word in the sparrow language. A concept can be further elaborated using ''concept axioms,'' which are essentially more complex sentences of a restricted form. Consider the following example. |
| + |
| + {{{ |
| + concept Animal kind-of Organism |
| + }}} |
| + |
| + This sentence states that 'Animal' is a subconcept of 'Organism'. In other words, every animal is an organism. The term 'kind-of' is a reserved word (sometimes referred to as "is-a"). The sentence is considered an axiom because it is asserting a rule, or relationship, that is assumed to hold between 'Animal' and 'Organism'. Namely, that being an animal implies being an organism. |
| + |
| + Both 'Animal' and 'Organism' are asserted as being concepts by this sentence. The sentence is equivalent to the following three sparrow sentences. |
| + |
| + {{{ |
| + concept Organism |
| + concept Animal |
| + concept Animal kind-of Organism |
| + }}} |
| + |
| + Multiple sentences defining the same concept can be combined through conjunction (and). For example, the sentences: |
| + |
| + {{{ |
| + concept Animal kind-of Organism |
| + concept Animal kind-of not Plant |
| + }}} |
| + |
| + can be combined into the sentence: |
| + |
| + {{{ |
| + concept Animal kind-of Organism and not Plant |
| + }}} |
| + |
| + Here the terms 'and' and 'not' are sparrow reserved words. The sentence states that an animal is an organism but not a plant. For convenience, 'and' can be replaced by the term 'but', for example: |
| + |
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| - myConcept sub sparrow:top. |
| + concept Animal kind-of Organism but not Plant |
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| + Capitalization is not important in sparrow, thus the previous sentence is equivalent to: |
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| + {{{ |
| + CONCEPT animal KIND-OF organism BUT NOT plant |
| + }}} |
| + |
| + Another type of concept axiom that can be expressed in sparrow is equivalence among concepts. For example, consider the following sentence. |
| + |
| + {{{ |
| + concept Human same-as Person |
| + }}} |
| + |
| + This sentence asserts that 'Human' and 'Person' denote the same concept. |
| + |
| + |
| + !! Roles |
| + |
| + A more complex example ... |
| + |
| + {{{ |
| + concept Macromolecule same-as Molecule that contains at-least 100 Atom |
| + }}} |
| + |
| + |
| + |
| + !! Individuals |
| + |
| + |
| + |
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| - A sparrow ontology consists of one or more sparrow sentences. The following two sentences define |
| + A sparrow ontology is made up of a set of sparrow sentences. Typically an ontology would be stored in a single file, however, a file could conceivable store multiple ontologies. An ontology is started with the 'ontology' reserved word. An ontology can import definitions from other ontologies. The following example starts an ontology definition and imports an external ontology. |
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| - sparrow define myOnt uri 'http://seek.ecoinformatics.org/#myOnt' |
| - sparrow import yourOnt uri 'http://seek.ecoinformatic.org/#yourOnt' |
| + ontology myOnt 'http://seek.ecoinformatics.org/ontology1#' |
| + import yourOnt 'http://seek.ecoinformatics.org/ontology2#' |
| + |
| + ... |
| + |
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| + |
| + !!! Sparrow Reserved Wordsf |
| + |
| + ||reserved word||variant |
| + | and | but, that |
