[sc34wg3] Topics that represent other topics?

[Patrick Durusau]

Lars,

In part of your exchange with Martin Bryan the following appears:

Martin:

> | [My confusion with this is that I still don't see how I can make the
> | subject of my topic the fact that an association has been set up
> | between something with this role and something with that role
> | ... but hopefully someone will explain that in terms I can
> | comprehend one day.]
> 

Lars:
> Actually, that's been discussed at length and the conclusion that was
> reached in the end is that topic maps don't provide any machinery for
> creating topics that represent other topics, either. So the answer is
> that at present this is not explicitly supported. You can define a
> convention for this yourself, and use TMQL to query it, but you really
> will have to do stuff yourself.

Are you seeing this as the same as the: prop-reifier-topic discussion?

http://www.ontopia.net/omnigator/models/topic_complete.jsp?tm=tm-standards.xtm&id=prop-reifier-topic

My unofficial notes from Baltimore, 2002, indicated:

> 1.7. prop-reifier-topic
> 
> Can reify anything except a topic. Not possible now because it implies merging. with subjectIndicatorRef to refer to the topic. Using a resourceRef to address an Association (biggest outstanding issue).
> 
> Proposed Resolution Should topic items have a reifier property and the answer is no. (Consistent with reification in general. See term-subject-address-def for further discussion) Definition of reification needs to be revisited. 3.4.4

I don't see Martin's question as one of how to reify a topic.

I think he is asking if he can have a topic for a subject, where the 
identity of the subject is defined in terms of other topics.

That is to say that Martin's topic is not representing other topics, but 
a subject that makes reference to other topics as part of its identity. 
It is that subject that is being represented by Martin's topic and not 
topics that are part of its identity.

Martin: Does that capture the question or have I made a mess of it?

Hope you are having a great day!

Patrick


-- 
Patrick Durusau
Director of Research and Development
Society of Biblical Literature
Patrick.Durusau@sbl-site.org
Chair, V1 - Text Processing: Office and Publishing Systems Interface
Co-Editor, ISO 13250, Topic Maps -- Reference Model

Topic Maps: Human, not artificial, intelligence at work!