SBVR Clause A.2.6 provides syntax for a concept called ‘intensional role’, but there is no such terminological entry and no clear definition.

In one of the business usage examples for DTV, we have encountered a usage of ‘time period’ in two intensional roles: ‘fixed period’ and ‘variable period’, but we can’t declare them: Concept type: intensional role.

As A.2.6 says, intensional roles arise when a concept designation is used with verbs of specification and change, and possibly others. The reference is to an unspecified thing of that will satisfy the concept. When one ‘specifies the rental period for X’, the rental period does not denote any time period. The whole idea is that one associates the concept ‘rental period for X’ with an extension that will only exist when the specifying action completes. Similarly, one cannot ‘change the rental period’, one can only change which time period “the rental period for X” denotes. With these verbs, the “intensional role” is equivalent to an ‘answer’ (at least in structure): one specifies “what time period the rental period is”.

The same idea seems to apply to a verb like ‘prevents’. If someone “prevents a forest fire”, there is no forest fire that is prevented; rather the concept ‘forest fire’ is not instantiated. But unlike the above, one does not prevent “what forest fire it is.” And if one ‘orders 1000 widgets’, they may or may not already exist so that they can be ordered. What one orders is a characterization of objects that are to be instantiated.

So, the intensional role seems to be a valuable concept for verb concept wordings, because it has real business use

Problem: If "body of shared concepts" were defined as [the set of] all of the concepts within a body of shared meanings", then I dont think the following entry would be needed: "body of shared concepts includes concept".

Resolution:

1. Change the definition of "body of shared concepts" to: the set of all of the concepts within a body of shared meanings"

2. Eliminate the entry: body of shared concepts includes concept

SBVR provides for a speech community to adopt a definition, or an element of guidance, but no clear way for a vocabulary to adopt a term and its definition from another vocabulary. The Date Time Vocabulary (clause 4) formally adopts a set of terms from the SBVR specification with the intent that the term means the definition given in SBVR and has whatever other associations that term may have to other adopted SBVR terms. (This is the usual practice for adopted terminology in an ISO standard.) But SBVR does not provide a formal expression for this. Instead, it appears that DTV must introduce all the required SBVR terms and their definitions and then cite SBVR as the Source of the definitions. (This is a practice ISO recommends against, because of the problem of synchronization of changes.) We believe that this is a shortcoming in SBVR.

Spin-off from Issue 14843 (via Issue 15623 Issue Resolution into which it was Merged)
The definition-based model specified in Clauses 8, 9, 10, 12 and 13 and the fact model defined in Clause 10 are different (although closely related) models. The differences between them should be described and a transformation from one to the other defined.
The underlying issue is:
1. SBVR’s metamodel is defined in Clauses 8, 9, 10, 12 and 13. Its instances (domain models) are linguistic models of meanings.
2. The model defined in Clause 10 is included in the normative SBVR model to support a formal logic interpretation of SBVR’s metamodel. Its instances (domain models) are fact models.
The proposed resolution is:
1. State, in introductory text in Clauses 8 and 10, that the models are different
2. Somewhere in Clause 10:
a. List the major differences between the two models
b. Describe informally what transformation would be needed to derive a domain fact model from a corresponding linguistic model. It is probably beyond the scope of this RTF to develop a formal specification

Resolution:
1. Add a subclause to Subclause 10.1.1 to discuss to an appropriate level of detail all aspects of the relationship between the concepts in the SBVR Vocabularies in Clauses 7, 8, 9, 11 & 12 and the formal interpretation in Subclause 10.1.1, as well as removing ambiguity from Clause 10.1.1 by consistent use of terms intension, extension, fact population, and the set of all possible facts..

Rectifying the Relationship Between SBVR and ISO 1087 Terms "Concept System" and "Relation"

SBVR uses two terms "concept system" and "relation" found in ISO 1087 but extends these notions in important ways. Specifically, SBVR supports more "elements of concept system structure" than ISO 1087 does – especially, but not exclusively, associations (verb concepts). ISO 1087 defines only some kinds of relation, such as 'generic relation', 'partitive relation', 'hierarchical relation'. Use of the terms "concept system" and "relation" in SBVR should be rectified.

1. "Concept System" appears in several places in SBVR, as follows:

• In the definition of Characteristic Type (p. 147)
• In the name and definition of "Elements of Concept System Structure" (p. 154)
• In text (p. 190 and p. 195)
  However, "concept system" is not defined in SBVR.

2. "Relation" (in the ISO sense roughly meaning 'connection') appears in several places in SBVR, as follows:

• In the definition of Body of Shared Meaning (p. 142) and in a note for that entry.
• in the definition of Category (p. 148) Note: Its use here may not be inconsistent with ISO.
• In the definition of More General Concept (p. 148) Note: Its use here may not be inconsistent with ISO.

RESOLUTION

1. "Concept System" is a synonym in SBVR for "Body of Shared Concepts" and should be explicitly treated as such.
2. "Concept System" should be indicated as the preferred term for the concept "Body of Shared Concepts". ("Body of Shared Concepts" is awkward and not memorable.)
3. A Note should be added to the entry for "Body of Shared Concepts" indicating ISO 1087 as the source for the term "concept system". Note: The ISO definition should not be indicated as the Basis for the entry since the ISO meaning is much more restricted.
4. Replace "relation" with "connection" in the definition of Body of Shared Meaning (p. 142) and in a note for that entry.
5. Replace "relation" with "connection" in the definitions of Category (p. 148) and More General Concept (p. 148).

OMG Issue No: 16685
Title: Fix Entries in Subclause 10.1.2.1 to Align with Subclause 10.1
Source:
SBVR Co-chair, Donald Chapin [Donald.Chapin@BusinessSemantics.com]
Summary:
Spin-off from Resolution of Issue 15623 (and 14843 which was Merged into it)
Fix the entries in SBVR Subclause 10.1.2.1 to bring them in line with what Clause 10.1 says as revised by the resolution to Issues 15623 & 14843.

Date/Time Annex F is titled: Annex F Simplified Syntax for Logical Formulations.

First, the title is wrong. The Date/Time standard contains logical formulations in OCL and CLIF. This Annex is a syntax for SBVR 'logical formulations', and this language, like SBVR Structured English, is somehow related to the vocabulary of SBVR clause 9. It should be titled: Simplified Syntax for SBVR Logical Formulations.

Secondly, as a consequence, this Annex is totally out of place in the Date/Time Vocabulary specification. If this is a useful notation for SBVR formulations, and is used in the SBVR community, then it should surely be an informative annex to the SBVR v1.1 specification, and simply be referenced in the Date/Time Annex (E) that uses it. If it is not used in the SBVR community, then it is certainly inappropriate for Date/Time to include it.
Recommendation: Delete Annex F and refer to the OMG (SBVR) specification that actually includes it. Otherwise, use a standardized SBVR notation in Annex E.
The Date/Time final submission should have identified Annex F as a proposed addition to the SBVR specification – a new informative Annex, and we may assert that OMG adoption of the Date/Time submission constitutes adoption of Annex F as an addition to the SBVR specification.

Annex H provides detailed guidance on the representation of SBVR vocabulary concepts in UML diagrams. Much of that guidance produces invalid UML constructs per UML 2.4.

H.1 "If there are additional terms for the concept they can be added within the rectangle, labeled as such – e.g., “also: is-category-of
fact type” as depicted in Figure H.1." There is no UML syntax for this.

H.2 "Alternatively, an individual concept can be depicted as an instance of its related general concept (noun concept), as in Figure H.3." The diagram uses an unidentified Dependency, which has no meaning. It should be formally stereotyped.

H.3.1 shows three representations of the fact type 'semantic community shares understanding of concept'. The third is invalid – an association can have only one name. Also the name of the association is 'shares understanding of'; it does not include the placeholder terms.

H.3.1 Figure H.4 shows associations that are navigable in both directions, inducing unnamed UML properties on 'semantic community' and 'concept' that are not intended. (This is a vestige of UML v1 ambiguity.) It should show no navigable ends, using UML 2.4 syntax.

H.3.4 Figure H.9 depicts an invalid relationship symbol; an association is required to have 2 or more roles.

H.4.2 Figure H.11 shows a stereotype <<is role of>> on a Generalization. I'm not sure this is valid UML, but in any case such a stereotype would have to be defined in a formal Profile. (Semantically, some "roles" are object types that specialize more general concepts, others are association ends (verb concept roles), and others are things in their own right that have the property 'role has occupant'.)

H.4.3 suggests that there is no consistent mapping for association names. In any case, the UML model of a 'fact type role' is a named association end, regardless of ownership.

H.6.1 Figure H.14. It is not clear what UML element has the name "Results by Payment type", and the text does not say. It may be a GeneralizationSet.

H.6.2 Figure H.16. ":modality" appears to be a TagValue associated with some unnamed and undefined Tag, or it may just be another string that names no model element.

H.8 In, Figure H.17 there is a meaningless dashed line between 'car recovery' and a ternary association (verb concept). It is said to represent 'objectification'. That dashed line should be a Dependency that has a stereotype indicating the nature of that relationship, e.g., <<objectification>>, defined in a Profile.

H.9 says that the default multiplicity on association ends is 0..*. According to the UML metamodel v2.4, the default multiplicity on a UML association end is 1..1, i.e., exactly one. This makes most of the SBVR UML diagrams implicitly erroneous.

So Annex H needs to be rewritten, and if it is to include standard stereotypes and tag values, it needs a standard UML Profile that defines them.

Further, it demonstrates the need for minor repairs to the UML diagrams throughout SBVR, to make them match the MOF model described in Clause 13.

When DTV v1.0-alpha was adopted, it contained a proposed simplified text representation for SBVR LRMV constructs (as distinct from the long and involved sequences of sentences used in SBVR examples, that make references to undefined concepts like'first variable'). The DTV FTF resolved issues about the disposition of the annex containing this SBVR LRMV notation by improving the description of the notation, but also revising the informative text that used the notation in such a way that the notation is no longer used in DTV. This LRMV notation therefore no longer has a use in DTV and is out of scope for the DTV specification. It is likely that the annex (DTV v1.1 Annex F) will be deleted from DTV v1.2.

The simplified LRMV notation has value for the wider SBVR community, and its description should be an informative Annex to SBVR. It is within the expertise and purview of the SBVR RTF to address any problems with the notation specification, and to maintain alignment with the SBVR specification generally. Accordingly, the SBVR RTF should maintain the adopted text of DTV Annex F as an Annex to SBVR.

Many business rules, laws of nature, etc., are given ‘names’ that are representations of those rules/laws as ‘individual concepts’.

For example, “Murphy’s Law” represents the proposition: Anything that can go wrong will. Similarly, “Newton’s First Law of Motion” represents the proposition: A body at rest will stay at rest unless acted on by an outside force. (Laws like “Sarbanes-Oxley” are not just propositions, they are actually bodies of guidance.)

What is the SBVR relationship between these signifier expressions and the propositions? The expressions are very like designations, there are different expressions in different languages, and a few such ‘laws’ are known by different names in different subject areas. But it does not appear that they can be contained in Vocabularies or terminological dictionaries.

These representations cannot be ‘designations’. Propositions cannot be (individual) concepts, unless the dichotomy of ‘meaning’ (= concept xor proposition) is not valid. And they are clearly not ‘statements’.

SBVR apparently assume that business terms are composed of natural language words, and that those words may have multiple morphemes that are nonetheless the same word and the same term. That is, a vocabulary term like 'purchase contract' may also have the form 'purchase contracts', and a vocabulary term like 'is owned by' may be expressed as 'has been owned by'. But SBVR says nothing about any of this in defining 'designation' or 'signifier'.
When a signifier for the same concept is in a formal language like OWL or CLIF, this idea of multiple morphemes is not (usually) part of the language syntax. So this should be carefully addressed.

For the SBVR Structured English language, Annex C.1 explicitly says that these alternate morphemes are "implicitly available for use", which may mean they are treated as equivalent, or just that they are recognized as uses of the same designation.

In natural language, such morphemes carry additional meaning , e.g., plurality or tense or mood. And a morphological variant of the same designation may or may not carry additional meaning, This is important, because SBVR examples assume that plurals are conventional and irrelevant, but the Date Time Vocabulary says that the use of verb tenses in natural language conveys indexical time intent. That is:
'John is in London' and 'John was in London' have different meanings in English. Do they have different meanings in SBVR SE?
And if so, do they always have different meanings? Natural language convention requires that a statement that dates a past event uses the past tense, e.g., 'John was in London in 2008.' Is it meaningful in SBVR SE to say (in 2012) 'John is in London in 2008'? And does that mean a different proposition from 'John was in London in 2008'?

Inadequate, Overlapping and Disorganized Specifications for Sets and Collections of Concepts, Meanings, and Representations

Problem:

Assumptions

Two assumptions are basic to the eight points of this problem statement:
• SBVR must provide a business vocabulary for business people and business analysts to talk clearly and precisely about terminological dictionaries and rulebooks and what they represent.
• The various aspects of this Issue must be addressed holistically. They can be resolved only by unifying, normalizing and completing all related specifications. (Thus, the need for a new unifying Issue.)

Problems

1. A known problem in SBVR is that the current version does not make clear what the fundamental unit of interoperability in SBVR is. No matter how that issue is resolved the unit should:
• Be identifiable from a business point of view.
• Not always have to be the full, non-redundant set of concepts, meanings, or representations.
The existing content of Clause 11 does not currently provide an adequate term for the second of these. This Issue proposes “collection” for that purpose.

Note: The term “collection” in the following discussion is never actually used on its own. Rather, it always appears with qualification – e.g., ‘collection of representations’.

2. Another known problem in SBVR centers on the use of the word “container” in e-mails and discussion. (Use of the signifier “container” per se is not part of this Issue.) It is unclear (to some) whether “container” refers to the ‘thing that contains’, to ‘what is contained’, or to both. The term is easily misused and misinterpreted. Also there are many variations of what is (or could be) contained (e.g., sets, collections, etc.). SBVR needs a precise, non-overlapping vocabulary for these things from a business point of view.

3. Another known problem in SBVR is that the existing content of Clause 11.2.2.3 “communication content” (a.k.a. “document content”) is not adequate for all purposes to which it might be put. SBVR needs a richer (but still minimal) set of concepts to address this area.

4. Certain existing terms in the existing content of Clause 11 (e.g., ‘terminological dictionary’ and ‘rulebook’) conflate ‘completeness and non-redundancy’ (i.e., being a set) with ‘primary purpose’ or ‘essence’. This conflation needs to be eliminated. In the real world for example, a rulebook does not have to be complete (e.g., it may contain only what is appropriate for a given audience), and it does not have to be non-redundant. It can contain the same rule statements in different sections, the intent being to provide the greatest clarity when being used by members of some speech community.

5. SBVR currently provides no means to talk about a collection of representations that is complete with respect to one or more specific concepts, but not complete with respect to all concepts in the body of shared meanings. Example: A listing of all baseball rules that address the concepts “strike” and “ball” only.

6. With respect to interoperability there is a minimum set of pragmatic business specifications (such as completeness, effective date, shelf life, mutability, etc.) needed for things communicated. SBVR does not currently support such specifications.

Note: There is no intent or need to get into document management or rule management. The dividing line is this: SBVR does not get into organizational issues (e.g., author, sponsor, reviewer, etc.), workflow issues (e.g., status, pre-approval distribution, sign-off, impact assessment, etc.), motivation (rationale, goals, risks), etc. SBVR must, however, provide minimum viability criteria for any sets or collections communicated. Otherwise the communicated content is not really useful and trustworthy on the receiving end. Consequently the purpose of interoperability is defeated.

7. Certain kinds of collections relevant to inter-operability are missing from the current content of Clause 11 – most notably ‘record’ (not IT ‘records’). Proper incorporation of this and other kinds of collections is needed.

8. Issue 16103, which addresses “speech community representation”, needs to be worked into a holistic solution.

The objectification example “EU-Rent reviews each corporate account at EU-Rent Headquarters” in SBVR v1.1 clause 9.2.7 (as modified per the resolution to issue 16309), is expressed in the usual sequence of sentences. The formal logic interpretation of those sentences is:
For each corporate account A, there exists a state of affairs S such that

S objectifies “EU-Rent reviews A”,

and S occurs at EU Rent HQ.

Now, per Clause 8 there is only one such state of affairs; and its existence is a given, that is, for every proposition of the form ‘company reviews account’, the corresponding state of affairs necessarily exists. But nothing is said here about that state of affairs being actual. Moreover, since there is probably more than one “occurrence” of that state of affairs, the definition of ‘state of affairs occurs at place’ would be less than obvious. Or is it the intent that there is only one review of each corporate account? Whatever it means for an abstract state of affairs (that might be a set, including the empty set) to ‘occur at a place’, it is not clear, and it is important to the example of objectification – what is the state of affairs that it produces.

In SBVR v1.0, the variable S ranges over the verb concept ‘company reviews account’, because the instances of the verb concept were then said to be actualities. The resolution of Issue 14849 makes instances of a verb concept ‘states of affairs’ instead of actualities. But states of affairs need not be actual. It is obvious that some thought was given to this example, because v1.1 changed it. What is not clear is whether it is any closer to what was intended.

A definition of ‘state of affairs occurs at place’ should probably follow the DTV pattern for ‘state of affairs occurs at time’. In DTV parlance, what was intended is: Each occurrence of the state of affairs “EU Rent reviews A” ‘occurs at’ EU Rent HQ. But SBVR lacks the vocabulary to express that.

SBVR 1.2 beta annex G (EU Rent Example) adopts concepts from the Date-Time Vocabulary (DTV) but deliberately gives them names that are both inconsistent with DTV and in fact are confusingly similar to the names of other concepts that are defined in DTV. Although any business can use any vocabulary terms desired, an OMG standard should maintain consistency with other OMG vocabularies for reasons of quality and to avoid user confusion. Especially a portion of a standard that is specifically intended to "to provide an aid to help them understand the specification " (annex G.2).

The Annex is also inconsistent in its own terminology with respect to dates and times. For example, "maximum rental period" (Annex G.6.6) is a kind of "duration" even though G.8.6 defines "period" as a kind of "time interval" and a "rental period" (G.6.8.3) is a kind of "period".

This annex also defines its own concepts that relate states of affairs to time, and for quantities – rather than using the corresponding concepts defined by the Date-Time Vocabulary. It fails to give definitions for these concepts, which means they are subject to varying interpretations. The example would be stronger if it used the carefully worked-out concepts defined in the Date-Time Vocabulary.

Specifically:

• Annex G.8.4 specifies, but does not define, concepts such as "state of affairs at point in time". 'Point in time' is a synonym for Date-Time's 'time point', which is a time interval that is a single member of a time scale. The authors of this Annex apparently did not understand that the duration of a time point depends upon the granularity of the time scale that is used. Consider a time scale of years. What does it mean to say that a "state of affairs at [a year]? Is the state of affairs "at" throughout the year or just during some portion of the year. The Annex G concept is fundamentally ambiguous.
• Annex G.8.5 defines concepts such as "period", "period1 overlaps period2", and many others, using the definitions from Date-Time's "time interval", "time interval1 overlaps time interval2", etc., but with its own terms. This is particularly confusing because Date-Time has other concepts with similar names, such as "time period". (I do not object to terms that are clearly business specific, such as "rental period".) Moreover, the Annex probably should be built on the DTV "time period" concept, rather than "time interval". The discussion of the "Rental Time Unit" makes it clear that EU-Rent is interested in periods that are based on calendars (i.e. DTV "time period") rather than arbitrary periods ("time interval"). Probably the authors of the Annex did not understand the difference.
• Annex G.8.5 defines a concept "date-time1 is before date-time2" that is unnecessary in light of the fact that a "date-time" is a kind of "time coordinate", which is a representation of a "time interval". The existing "time interval1 precedes time interval2" is applicable to all time coordinates, in the same way that representations of quantities (e.g. "5") may be used in instance of the verb concept "quantity1 is less than quantity2".
• Annex G.8.5 misquotes some definitions from the Date-Time Vocabulary. For example, the definition of "current day" is misquoted.
• The concept "date time" is defined twice: in G8.5 and in G.8.9.5. Another concept "date-time" has almost the same spelling, but has a different definition – another likely source of user confusion. Plus the definition does not make sense.
• The Annex mixes two distinct types of concepts: "time intervals" (spans of time) and "time coordinates" (representations of time intervals). It should use one or the other throughout. The confusion is particularly obvious in places like the definition of "rental is late", which talks about the "end date-time" of a "grace period".

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.

In SBVR clause 8.3.4, in the entry for ‘placeholder’, it is stated that a placeholder exists in only one verb concept wording, and it refers to some role of the verb concept in that wording. It follows that the two placeholders spelled ‘concept1’ in ‘concept1 specializes concept2’ and in the Synonymous form: ‘concept2 generalizes concept1’ (in 8.1.1.1) refer to two roles of the verb concept being defined. Since these two placeholders spelled ‘concept1’ are different designations, how are they related?

Annex C.3.1 does not say anything about the relationship between placeholders in the primary verb concept wording and placeholders in synonymous forms. (It just says something about subscripts being used to differentiate placeholders.) The intent is that the placeholder expression represents the SAME verb concept role in ALL primary and synonymous forms. That is, the placeholder is the SAME DESIGNATION in all verb concept wordings for the same verb concept. The text of 8.3.4 contradicts this intent, saying that the placeholder only has meaning within a given verb concept wording. If the text is correct, it is necessary to state some rule about the meaning of the same placeholder expression (the distinct designation) in the different synonymous forms.

Further, in the Definition of ‘concept1 specifies concept2’, the expression ‘concept1’ appears. Since that expression only refers to a verb concept role within a verb concept wording, it is utterly meaningless in the Definition! There are no placeholders in a Definition, and ‘concept1’ is not a signifier for any concept. And yet, the intent is that ‘concept1’ in the Definition is the placeholder expression and is intended to be interpreted as a reference to the thing that plays that verb concept role in an actuality of ‘concept1 specializes concept2’. Annex C says nothing about the use of placeholder expressions in Definitions, and 8.3.4 makes these usages meaningless, but they appear in every verb concept definition in SBVR.

It appears that the real intent is that a placeholder expression refers to one and the same verb concept role throughout the terminological entry for the verb concept, including at least all synonymous forms and definitions. Whether it also refers to the verb concept role in embedded Necessities needs to be clarified (it is not clear that SBVR ever assumes that, but DTV apparently does). The only aspect of a placeholder that is specific to a given verb concept wording is the ‘starting character position’, which suggests only that that relationship should be ternary, i.e., placeholder has starting character position in verb concept wording.

New SBV issue: Distinguishing the senses of infinitive and present tense
From Don Baisley

There are many verbs for which the present tense of a verb conveys a particularly different sense than the infinitive. The difference I refer to is not about "the present time", but about "occurring at least occasionally". For example, the statement that "Pam surfs" (present tense) combines the meaning of "to surf" (the infinitive) and the meaning that “it happens at least occasionally”.

For such verbs, there is a challenge when using SBVR's typical pattern of defining verb concepts in the present tense. It tends to conflate the infinitive sense of a verb with the different sense meant by the present tense. That conflation causes problems. This is not an issue for ORM or other approaches that do not try to support natural language tense in a generic way. The problem has no apparent impact for many verbs where the present tense sense of "occurring at least occasionally" is inconsequential or inapplicable. The problem is especially troublesome for eventive verbs. Most SBVR verbs are stative, so the problem has tended to go unnoticed in the SBVR vocabulary itself.
If supporting tense in a generic way, in logical formulations, the other tenses should be built on objectifications that start with the infinitive sense of a verb, not with the present tense. Also, modal operations like obligation build on the infinitive sense.

For examples below, I define verb concept forms for generic "tense" concepts using the verb "occurs" (where the there is a role that ranges over the concept 'state of affairs'). The choices of signifier and form are arbitrary (not necessary), but seem to convey the sense of the tenses naturally.

Example:
'person surfs' (present tense)
'person surf' (the infinitive sense)

Where someone puts 'person surfs' in a business glossary, there is an underlying verb concept that has the sense of "to surf", the infinitive. I show it here in examples as 'person surf' (leaving out the infintizing "to"). This underlying verb concept is necessary to correctly formulate other tenses, and even necessary to formulate use of the present tense in some cases, which I will show later.

Here are several examples of statements and interpretations using generic tense concepts built on the verb "occur". To be terse, I show objectification using brackets.

Pam surfs.
[Pam surf] occurs

Pam is surfing.
[Pam surf] is occurring

Pam was surfing.
[Pam surf] was occurring

Pam has been surfing.
[Pam surf] has been occurring

Pam surfed.
[Pam surf] occurred

Pam will be surfing.
[Pam surf] will be occurring

Pam will surf.
[Pam surf] will occur

Pam will have been surfing.
[Pam surf] will have been occurring

The second example above, "Pam is surfing", can serve to illustrate the need to build on the infinitive rather than the present tense sense. To build on the present tense would be to say the thing that “is occurring” is Pam surfing at least occasionally, which is incorrect. The present continuous and other tenses do not include the present tense sense of occurring at least occasionally, so they cannot rightly be built upon a concept that conveys that sense.

I said above I would show where the infinitive sense is sometimes needed even for the present tense. Here is a case where the infinitive 'person surf' concept is needed to formulate a statement that uses "surf" only in the present tense:

Pam talks while she surfs.

Wrong Interpretation I1: [Pam surfs] occurs while [Pam talks] occurs

I1 misses the key sense of the statement, because [Pam surfs] (present tense) means that surfing is something Pam does at least occasionally and [Pam talks] means that talking is something that Pam does at least occasionally. I1 applies 'state of affairs1 occurs while state of affairs2 occurs' to the wrong states of affairs (the states in which Pam occasionally surfs and Pam occasionally talks).

Right Interpretation I2: [[Pam surf] occur while [Pam talk] occur] occurs

I2 correctly factors out the tense and applies it at an outer level (as we often do with modal operations). The conjunction joins objectifications of the underlying sense of "to surf" and "to talk" without the added meaning of the present tense (that the surfing or talking is at least occasional). The sense of present tense (happening at least occasionally) is then added at the outside where it applies to the simultaneous actions.

SBVR does not prevent verbs concepts from being defined in glossaries in the infinitive , as is typical of dictionary definitions of verbs. That approach has always been available. But that approach is not used in SBVR’s own glossary and examples. In general, the sense of “occurs at least occasionally” is absent from SBVR’s own verb concepts, so the distinction is unimportant. But business rules and facts run into the problem. E.g., a EU-Rent rule about whether a renter smokes vs. a rule about whether he is smoking when in a rental car.

Recommendation:

It will be best to resolve this in a way that does not disturb the business-friendly approach of showing verb concept readings in the present tense. It might be possible to define a pattern in SBVR Structured English by which verb concepts with an infinitive sense are implied where present tense versions are explicitly presented in a glossary.

Examples of formulations need to show the distinction. Existing examples should be examined and fixed as needed. New formulation examples might be helpful to demonstrate using generic tense concepts to build on a root verb concept.
None of this changes the meaning of 'state of affairs' or 'objectification', but understanding this issue and its solution might help bring clarity to some of the examples that have been discussed.

The problem statement: The Annex is out of date with respect to RuleSpeak notation, probably the newly released version of EU-Rent, and perhaps newer aspects of SBVR itself.

Spin-off from Issue 14843 (via Issue 15623 Issue Resolution into which it was Merged)
The definition-based model specified in Clauses 8, 9, 10, 12 and 13 and the fact model defined in Clause 10 are different (although closely related) models. The differences between them should be described and a transformation from one to the other defined. This would address two concerns:
1. Allow the definition-based model to have an open-world assumption and the fact model to have a closed-world assumption.
The proposed resolution is:
1. Define that Clause 10 ‘fact models’ are by default closed world models

In SBVR clause 8.4.4, there is a necessity in the entry for ‘placeholder’: “Each placeholder is in exactly one verb concept wording”. Now, immediately before section 8.4.4, in the entry for ‘statement expresses proposition’, there is a synonymous form: ‘proposition has statement’. So, ‘statement’ is the text of two placeholders. A.4.12 (Synonymous forms) tries to say that these two different placeholders refer to the same verb concept role, but the statement is garbled: “The ones using the same designation as placeholders of the primary form represent the corresponding verb concept roles…” The ‘designation used by a placeholder’ is the representation of the range concept by a signifier for that concept, per 8.4.4 ‘placeholder uses designation’. What is intended here is: “A placeholder that has the same expression as a placeholder of the primary verb concept wording represents the same verb concept role.”

Further, in that same example entry, there is a Definition: “the statement represents the proposition”. According to A.4.2.3, the expression ‘statement’ refers to a placeholder in the verb concept wording, but that is ambiguous, since there are two verb concept wordings. That text should say the primary verb concept wording, so as to disambiguate the reference.

Again, in A.4.12, the following sentence appears: “The order of placeholders for verb concept roles can be different.” What does that mean? By the necessity above, the placeholders are different, so they cannot be reordered. The intent is that the relative positions of the placeholders for the same verb concept role may be different.

Finally, all of this is an elaborate convention to maintain the given Necessity. It seems that it would be much easier to make the placeholder a representation of the verb concept role throughout the terminological entry, as distinct from having it denote the verb concept role in the primary entry and in the Definition(s), but not in Synonymous forms, Descriptions, Notes, etc. The only function of that Necessity is to make a single ternary fact type: “Verb concept wording has placeholder at starting character position” into two binary fact types that each convey half the concept. A great deal of effort is expended to explain use of a business-friendly syntax that violates the stated model of a purely syntactic concept – the intent is that the placeholder expression represents the same verb concept role throughout the entry. And verb concept wordings are ONLY about expressions. The underlying problem is that the concept ‘terminological entry’ is not part of the clause 8 vocabulary, and is therefore not available to be the scope of a placeholder. But then, the concept ‘primary verb concept wording’ is not in the clause 8 vocabulary, either.

The title of this issue is an example of common problem in SBVR Structured English.

Impossibility: An SBVR SE statement contains a qualifier whose subject is a property of the referent.

Given the verb concept 'sequence has member' aka 'thing is member of sequence', how is the following definition to be written in SBVR SE: "sequence each member of which is a time point"?

The referent of the pronoun 'which' is the sequence, but the subject of the qualifier clause is a quantified property of the referent. But SBVR SE only permits the (anaphor) pronoun to be 'that' or 'who' and apparently requires it to follow the referent noun immediately.

SBVR SE does not permit: "sequence of which each member is a time point".

And it does not provide a 'where' or 'such that' construct that would allow the back reference to be represented by 'the sequence', as in: "sequence where each member of the sequence is a time point".

Even the simpler case of a reference to a unique property of the referent in the qualifier clause --"shipment whose delivery date has passed" – requires a circumlocution ("shipment that has a delivery date that has passed"), because 'whose' is not an SBVR SE keyword. And the cascading 'that's interfere with the expression of compound qualifiers (using 'and that …').

In our experience, this shortcoming significantly limits the clear expression of definitions and rules in SBVR SE.

SBVR Clause 9.2 defines: ‘semantic formulation’ as ‘a conceptual structure of meaning’.

And then closed semantic formulation is defined as 'semantic formulation that includes no variable without binding'

But no SBVR concept associates semantic formulation (in general) with variables. And some other conceptual structure of meaning, e.g., phrased in SBVR structured English or OWL, might not have any notion of ‘variable’ or ‘binding’ at all. So the definition appeals to a delimiting characteristic that may be meaningless for the general concept, and thereby admit semantic formulations that were not intended.

Every structure of meaning presumably formulates a meaning; otherwise it formulates nonsense. But clause 9.2 has only ‘closed semantic formulation formulates meaning’, which suggests that open semantic formulations (involving free variables) formulate nonsense. That is simply not true of a ‘structure of meaning’ formulated in CLIF. What is really meant is that LRMV ‘closed logical formulations’ formulate propositions, and LRMV ‘closed projections’ formulate concepts. But those are special cases.

The definition of ‘closed semantic formulation’ should be ‘closed logical formulation or closed projection’, which makes it clearly an LRMV concept, and then those concepts must state their relationship to free variables.

The general idea for all conceptual structures of meaning is ‘semantic formulation formulates meaning’, which would allow other semantic formulations, e.g., in SBVR SE, OWL, etc., to be related to the meanings they formulate. If an LRMV projection or logical formulation that is not closed does not formulate a meaning, that is a LRMV Necessity for those specific concepts.

Finally, note that a (clause 8) Definition is always a representation of a conceptual structure of meaning that formulates a concept. The important idea in ‘definition serves as designation’ in clause 11.2.3 is that the representation of a semantic formulation (a conceptual structure of meaning) is used to refer to the concept itself, rather than just the properties contained in the formulation. This idea of semantic formulation as conceptual structure of meaning is fundamental to the notion ‘definition’, and should not be buried in the LRMV.

In clause A.2.2, the keyword 'another' is introduced, with the interpretation:

(used with a term that has been previously used in the same statement) existential quantification plus a condition that the referent thing is not the same thing as the referent of the previous use of the term

The idea "existential quantification plus" is an unnecessary and undesirable addition. The useful keyword is 'other'. As described, "other X" means "instance of the general concept X that is not the same thing as the referent of the previous occurrence of the term X". But "another" is just a conventional spelling of "an other", and might equally have been spelled "some other". The term 'other' can be usefully quantified by quantifiers other than "an". Each other, at least n other, at most n other, exactly n other, and no other are all valid uses of 'other' with the given interpretation, less the "existential quantification plus".

Defining only the portmanteau keyword 'another' greatly and unnecessarily limits the expressiveness of SBVR Structured English in this area.

SBVR v1.1 Clause 8 says:
Note: in the glossary entries below, the words “Concept Type: role” indicate that a general concept being defined is a role.
Because it is a general concept, it is necessarily a situational role and is not a verb concept role.

How does one declare an attributive role that is not a general concept?

SBVR v1.1 appears to use such declarations to also declare roles that are attributive roles of a given noun concept and thus also in the attributive namespace of the noun concept. For example, clause 8.6 declares 'cardinality', which is an attributive role of integers with respect to 'sets', in a glossary entry with Concept type: role. But 'cardinality' is not a general concept; nothing is a 'cardinality', full stop. An integer can only be a 'cardinality' OF something. it is a purely attributive term. As a term for a general concept, 'cardinality' is thus a term in the Meaning and Representation namespace; it has no 'context'.

The problem arises in defining attributive roles of general noun concepts, such as 'occurrence has time span' and 'schedule has time span', where the definitions of the two roles are importantly different because they are attributes of different general concepts that are only similar in nature. Neither is a situational role. That is, neither is a general concept. No time interval is a 'time span', full stop. A time interval must be a time span OF something. One 'time span' is in the attributive namespace of 'schedule', and a different 'time span' designation is in the attributive namespace of 'occurrence'. Neither is in the DTV.Situations vocabulary namespace per se. How can this be declared using SBVR conventions? Declaring them both in glossary entries with Concept Type: role apparently makes them conflicting designations for 'situational roles' in the DTV.Situations vocabulary.

Does simply declaring the verb concept 'occurrence has time span' declare the attributive role? If so, how is the range of the role declared? And where does the definition of the attributive role go?

The notion of “well-formedness” in compliance point 1 should be defined

Title: SBVR needs a consistently applied policy for styling or not styling signifiers
Source:
John Hall, RuleML Initiative
john.hall@modelsystems.co.uk
Summary:
There is some inconsistency in the SBVR specification regarding which signifiers are styled and which are not.
A policy needs to be agreed and applied consistently through the SBVR specification.
Resolution:
1. Style each use of the signifier of a concept (e.g. ‘thing’, ‘meaning’) where that use has the specific meaning defined in its SBVR entry;
2. If the signifier of a defined concept has an everyday English meaning that is different from its SBVR definition, don’t style uses of it where the everyday meaning is intended;
3. Add a paragraph to the introduction explaining the basis for styling/not styling.

The first statement in Annex A.4.2.3 is misleading:

A definition given for a verb concept is an expression that can be substituted for a simple statement expressed using a verb

concept wording of the verb concept.

Unlike a noun concept definition, the definition of a verb concept cannot simply be substituted for an occurrence of the verb concept wording. Like the verb concept wording itself, it is a structured pattern with placeholder parameters, and the substitution process is complex. In “substituting the definition expression for a simple statement expressed using the verb concept wording”, it is also necessary to substitute the role phrases that are used in the verb concept wording in that simple statement for the corresponding placeholders in the definition. That is significantly different from what happens in the noun concept case.

In the same subclause, the sentence:

“A definition of a verb concept can generally be read using the pattern below ...
A fact that ... is a fact that ...”

is not quite general enough. The definition characterizes the same state of affairs, even when it is not a fact. It could be written:

A state of affairs in which ... is a state of affairs in which ...

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