SBVR14 — Swap Preferred Signifiers for (Business) Rules and Advices

In the early days of team discussions about alethic vs. deontic modalities for rules and advices, the signifiers "structural" and "operative" were introduced to make this important distinction between modalities (respectively). Later, the signifiers "definitional" and "behavioral" were introduced as synonyms.

Over time the synonyms have proven more accurate, intuitive, and popular, both within SBVR team discussions and externally. For example:
• The signifier "operative" has not been used in the Business Rules Journal on www.BRCommunity.com as a primary signifier since at least 2009.
• Both of my books (Business Rule Concepts and Business Analysis with Business Rules) use the synonyms.
• In my judgment, an internet search on "behavioral (business) rules" produces more relevant results than one on "operative (business) rules".

The time has come to designate the newer pair as the preferred signifiers and to switch usage throughout the SBVR standard itself. There are at least two reasons this change over should be made immediately:

1) The re-sequenced /reorganized version of SBVR currently underway should not be appear in a revised form until the preferred terminology is corrected.
2) Version 3.0 of IIBA's BABOK, widely influential within the business analysis community and beyond, is now in its final public renew stage. (The deadline is July 11.) Several RTF team members would like to be in a position to inform them of the revised preferred terminology, and to be able to say it's mandated this is the standard terminology by according to SBVR. This window of opportunity will close for at least 3 years or so unless we do it now.

Change the entry for 'structural rule' (in 17.1.2) to use 'definitional rule' as the entry term and to use 'structural rule' as a Synonym. Make the corresponding changes to swap terms in the synonym ("See:") entry that follows. Also change the entry for 'structural business rule' (in 17.1.2) to use 'definitional business rule' as the entry term and to use 'structural business rule' as a Synonym. Make the corresponding changes to swap terms in the synonym ("See:") entry that follows.
Ignoring these four entries in 17.1.2 AND the cases listed below, change (everywhere) the term 'structural' to 'definitional'. The cases where "structural" does NOT change are:
• in Clause 14: the 14.1 title & the 14.2 title.
• in the uses of "structurally" — all such cases are valid as is and should not be changed.
Change the entry for 'operative business rule' (in 18.1.2) to use 'behavioral business rule' as the entry term and to use 'operative business rule' as a Synonym. Make the corresponding changes to swap terms in the synonym ("See:") entry that follows.
Ignoring these two entries in 18.1.2, change (everywhere) the term 'operative' to 'behavioral' and correct the article 'an' to use 'a', where needed.
Change the diagrams where 'structural' and 'operative' appear to reflect the new primary terms.