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  1. OMG Issue

SBVR15 — Noun form designates two different concepts

  • Key: SBVR15-1
  • Legacy Issue Number: 17532
  • Status: closed  
  • Source: Thematix Partners LLC ( Mr. Edward J. Barkmeyer)
  • Summary:

    In clause 8.3.4, the term 'verb concept wording' is defined as:
    "representation of a verb concept by an expression that has a syntactic structure involving a signifier for the verb concept and signifiers for its verb concept roles"

    In the same clause, the term 'noun form' is defined as:
    "verb concept wording that acts as a noun rather than forming a proposition"

    One would expect therefore, that a noun form of a verb concept would be a gerund, such as 'car transfer' for 'branch1 transfers car to branch2', where the 'noun form' denotes the same actualities as the verb concept.

    But only the last Example (which is hard to understand because of a particularly bad choice of verb) is said to be about gerunds. The other examples clearly are not. The first Example is: "'transferred car of car transfer' for the verb concept 'car transfer has transferred car'. This form yields a transferred car."

    The instances of 'car transfer has transferred car' are actualities of a car being involved in a car transfer. But the cited text says the instances of the 'noun form' 'transferred car of car transfer' are cars, not actualities. Similarly, the interpretation of the other two examples of 'noun forms' correspond to numbers, not actualities.

    So the instances of a noun form of a verb concept need not be instances of the verb concept! The noun form therefore cannot be a 'verb concept wording'. The noun form does not represent the verb concept!

    It appears that there are two different concepts here. Noun form 1 is "verb concept wording that acts as a noun." That is the gerund in the last Example. In the other examples, the noun form represents a derived concept that is what SBVR calls a 'situational role'. The intent of 'noun form 2' is "representation of a situational role by an expression that has a syntactic structure involving a signifier for the verb concept that the role is derived from and signifiers for some of its verb concept roles".

    Finally, use of noun form 2 in declaring a glossary item for a situational role would be preferable to using only the role designation. In particular, the explicit appearance of other role placeholders in the noun form would permit them to be used directly in defining the situational role.

    For example:
    cardinality
    Definition: nonnegative integer that is the number of distinct elements in a given set or collection

    could be declared with the noun form:
    cardinality of set
    Definition: nonnegative integer that is the number of distinct elements in the set

  • Reported: SBVR 1.1 — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 04:00 GMT
  • Disposition: Deferred — SBVR 1.5
  • Disposition Summary:

    Need to establish approved baseline from SBVR v1.5 Issue Resolutions to proceed with the Rest

    Need to establish approved baseline from SBVR v1.5 Issue Resolutions to proceed with the Rest

  • Updated: Tue, 8 Oct 2019 17:48 GMT