| Line 10 was replaced by line 10 |
| - Sparrow is a description-logic variant that is meant as a "lightweight" alternative to RDF/S and OWL for defining ontologies. This document describes the 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. |
| Line 12 was replaced by line 12 |
| - !!! Sparrow |
| + !!! Sparrow |
| Line 14 was replaced by line 14 |
| - Sparrow ontologies, like description-logic ontologies, define concepts, roles, individuals, and properties. |
| + Sparrow, like description logics, represent ontologies using concepts, roles, and individuals. We desribe each of these below. |
| Line 16 was replaced by line 16 |
| - !! Basics: Simple Concept Definitions |
| + !! Concepts |
| Line 18 was replaced by line 18 |
| - Concepts and roles in sparrow are defined using sentences. New concepts can be "created" using the following sentence. |
| + In sparrow, concepts are defined using ''sentences.'' For instance, we can introduce a new concept called 'Vegetarian' using the following sentence. |
| Line 21 was replaced by line 21 |
| - concept vegetarian. |
| + concept Vegetarian |
| Line 24 was replaced by line 24 |
| - This sentence simply states that the term 'vegetarian' is a concept. Instead, we can give more details by defining concepts. |
| + 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. |
| Line 27 was replaced by line 27 |
| - concept animal is_a organism. |
| + concept Animal kind-of Organism |
| Line 30 was replaced by line 30 |
| - This sentence states that the term 'animal' is a sub-concept of the concept 'organism'. In other words, every animal is an organism. Both 'animal' and 'organism' are asserted as being concepts by this sentence. The sentence is equivalent to the following three sparrow sentences. |
| + 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. |
| At line 31 added 29 lines. |
| + 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: |
| + |
| + {{{ |
| + concept Animal kind-of Organism but not Plant |
| + }}} |
| + |
| + Capitalization is not important in sparrow, thus the previous sentence is equivalent to: |
| + |
| Lines 33-35 were replaced by line 62 |
| - concept organism. |
| - concept animal. |
| - concept animal is_a organism. |
| + CONCEPT animal KIND-OF organism BUT NOT plant |
| Line 38 was replaced by line 65 |
| - Multiple sentences about the same concept are combined through conjunction (and). For example, the sentences: |
| + Another type of concept axiom that can be expressed in sparrow is equivalence among concepts. For example, consider the following sentence. |
| Lines 41-45 were replaced by line 68 |
| - concept organism. |
| - concept animal. |
| - concept plant. |
| - concept animal is_a organism. |
| - concept animal is_a not plant. |
| + concept Human same-as Person |
| Line 48 was replaced by lines 71-72 |
| - can be combined into the equivalent sentence: |
| + This sentence asserts that 'Human' and 'Person' denote the same concept. |
| + |
| At line 49 added 4 lines. |
| + !! Roles |
| + |
| + A more complex example ... |
| + |
| Line 51 was replaced by line 79 |
| - concept animal is_a organism and not plant. |
| + concept Macromolecule same-as Molecule that contains at-least 100 Atom |
| Line 54 was replaced by line 82 |
| - In other words, an animal is an organism but not a plant. |
| + |
| At line 55 added 1 line. |
| + !! Individuals |
| At line 56 added 2 lines. |
| + |
| + |
| Line 59 was replaced by line 90 |
| - 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. |
| Lines 62-63 were replaced by lines 93-97 |
| - 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#' |
| + |
| + ... |
| + |
| At line 64 added 5 lines. |
| + |
| + !!! Sparrow Reserved Wordsf |
| + |
| + ||reserved word||variant |
| + | and | but, that |
