SBVR14 — Definition of 'question'

In clause 8.1.3, 'question' is defined as "meaning of an interrogatory".
Assuming that "interrogatory" means "interrogatory sentence", this defines the meaning in terms of the form of expression. Because the same interrogatory sentence may have more than one meaning, depending on the context of its utterance, this definition means: the meaning of an interrogatory sentence in context. But the same meaning extends across (some) contexts, while the answer may be different in each such context. That is, some part of the context of utterance affects the interpretation of the utterance; other parts of the context of utterance only affect its result. So this is a poor definition.

A question is really an "operation" on a concept or proposition that creates a new form of meaning. One can describe a 'question' as a function applied to a concept or proposition whose result is its extension. There are 3 kinds of questions:

• a concept question (What), which asks for the extension of a concept,
• a proposition question (Whether), which asks for the truth-value (technically the extension) of a proposition.
• a propositional relationship question (Why), which asks for the extension of a 2nd-order proposition about propositions (or objectified 'states of affairs' identified by propositions) – the set of all propositions P such that 'P causes Q' or 'P entails Q'.

Since clause 9 apparently supports 'question' meanings in exactly this way, SBVR should define 'question' to be a meaning that explicitly refers to the extension of a concept. That is, the question means its answer. It should not mean the action of asking.

Deferred to SBVR v1.5 Revision Task Force because the SBVR v1.4 RTF was requested to close before it was finished so the SBVR RTF could be convert to JIRA.