SBVR16 — extending an adopted concept

In the SBVR Meaning and Representation Vocabulary, the entries for ‘noun concept’ and ‘verb concept’ contain reference schemes that refer to the concept ‘closed projection’ and related fact types that do not appear in the MRV itself. In the MRV per se, these are undefined terms. I am told, but do not find in SBVR v1.2, that if only the MRV is implemented, such Reference Schemes are ignored, while clause 13.4.2 explicitly says that the UML/MOF classes must have the corresponding properties. If properly documented, this approach may be fine for the specification of SBVR itself. In general, however, this approach assumes that the speech community that develops a formal vocabulary is omniscient about reference schemes used by speech communities who ADOPT the original vocabulary. In general, an adopting community might add new fact types about an adopted concept that result in new reference schemes for the concept. Also, the adopting community might add new synonyms or synonymous forms for an adopted concept. There is no reason to suppose that the original speech community is even aware of the adoption, and there is no way these additional elements can have been present in the original terminological entry. So, the approach used in SBVR itself is unworkable for general use.

When a concept is adopted by another vocabulary, it should be expressly possible for the “adopting entry” to include new reference schemes and synonymous forms, and possibly other elements of a terminological entry.

Further, if such a mechanism is introduced, the SBVR vocabularies themselves should use it, rather than incorporating reference schemes in the base terminology entry that refer to fact types that don’t exist in that vocabulary per se. For example, the LRMV should formally adopt the MRV concepts and add the reference schemes involving closed projections in the ADOPTING ‘noun concept’ and ‘verb concept’ entries.