SBVR12 — Eliminate Ambiguity from Two Interpretations for the Definition of Proposition

Source:
Business Semantics Ltd, Donald Chapin, (Donald.Chapin@BusinessSemantics.com)
Summary:
In a recent SBVR RTF telecon it was discovered that that are two possible interpretations of the definition of ‘proposition’:
meaning that has a logical structure involving concepts and that corresponds to a state of affairs and that is either true or false based on whether that state of affairs is actual or not
The intended interpretation was that, to be a proposition, it must always in all possible worlds be able to be determined whether is it true or false, but that the assertion of that truth value is separate from the proposition, which SBVR defined to be a meaning.
The second interpretation is that the truth value is part of the proposition.
This ambiguity needs to be removed.
Resolution:
Clarify the entry for ‘proposition’ to remove the ambiguity. Part of the exisitng definition, “and that corresponds to a state of affairs”, is included as the entry, ‘proposition corresponds to a state of affairs, with its own definition in the resolution to Issue 10803.
Revised Text:
REPLACE the current definition of ‘proposition’ in Clause 8.1.2 on printed page 26:
Definition: meaning that has a logical structure involving concepts and that corresponds to a state of affairs and that is either true or false based on whether that state of affairs is actual or not
WITH:
Definition: meaning of a declarative sentence that is not a paradoxical and that is invariant through all the paraphrases and translations of the sentence
Note: A wff is a special case of statement in which there are no free occurrences of any variable, i.e. either it has constants in place of variables, or its variables are bound, or both

ADD the following Source after the Definition in the entry for ‘proposition’ in Clause 8.1.2 on printed page 26:
Source: [SubeGFOL]: proposition (2 & 3), Wff, Closed Wff

ADD the following Necessity after the newly added Source in the entry for ‘proposition’ in Clause 8.1.2 on printed page 26:
Necessity: It is necessary that each proposition that is created by quantifying all the verb concept roles of a given verb concept means what the definition of the verb concept defines it to mean.
ADD the following Note after the last existing Note in the entry for ‘proposition’ in Clause 8.1.2 on printed page 26:
Note: The truth-value of the proposition is separate from the proposition (i.e. the meaning of the statement). The proposition means the same thing regardless of the possible world that is referenced to determine the truth-value. Documenting the truth-value of a proposition is out of scope for SBVR and belongs to the domain of data management or rules enforcement.

Clarify the entry for ‘proposition’ to remove the ambiguity. Part of the exisitng definition, “and that corresponds to a state of affairs”, is included as the entry, ‘proposition corresponds to a state of affairs, with its own definition in the resolution to Issue 10803.