DTV — Date-Time Issue - states of affairs and situation models

During the development of the submission, the submission team could not reconcile its requirements against the SBVR "state of affairs" and related concepts. The submission team resolved this problem by developing its own "situation model" approach. It assumed that the "situation model" design would be a stand-in for a better long-term design agreed with the SBVR RTF.

The issue is highlighted by these two paragraphs that were in the submission and which the Architecture Board asked to have removed from the specification:

• In clause 7.3 introduction, "Temporal Concepts for Situations":

" Note: This specification introduces the concepts 'situation model' and 'occurrence' in order to present a complete and self-consistent vocabulary. SBVR has similar concepts 'state of affairs' and 'actuality' but, to date and after discussion with the SBVR RTF, the Date-Time submission team does not understand how to relate the Date-Time concepts with the existing SBVR concepts. The most pressing concern that Date-Time has with SBVR is that it is unclear how to relate a single proposition to multiple occurrences."

• In the clause 7.3.6 introduction:

" NOTE: In this section, situation model is said to be a specialization of the SBVR concept 'res', i.e., a thing that is not a 'meaning'. This is to distinguish 'situation model' from both SBVR 'concept' and 'proposition'. This specification treats the situation model as a thing in its own right, even though it is an abstraction, and relates it to occurrences by 'occurrence exemplifies situation model', rather than by SBVR 'meaning corresponds to thing'. It is worth noting that this specification may be misusing the SBVR concept 'proposition', for the reasons discussed above."
The SBVR RTF has been considering a number of formal Issues raised against SBVR regarding "state of affairs". The SBVR RTF has committed to addressing these issues in the SBVR RTF 2 by February 28, 2012. Once those Issues are resolved in the SBVR RTF, then this Issue should be addressed in the Date-Time FTF.

The resolution to issue 18173 addresses the concerns raised in this issue by defining 'situation kind' (new term for 'situation model') and 'occurrence' as specializations of 'state of affairs'. 18173 also adds to the Date-Time Vocabulary a detailed discussion of the meaning of propositions in possible worlds that have time, and the interpretation of SBVR's 'state of affairs is actual'. This firmly ensconces the relationship between these DTV terms and SBVR.

Revised Text:
(none)

Disposition: Merged