Description
Currently the the textual and logical definitions of ont00001836 'aggregate bearer of' and its inverse ont00001809 'inheres in aggregate' are out of sync.
- According to the textual definitions, they connect an instance of
'object aggregate'to an instance of'specifically dependent continuant'. - According to their domain and range axioms, they connect an instance of
'object aggregate'to an instance of'specifically dependent continuant' or 'generically dependent continuant'.
Reasons to eliminate the disjunctive of SDC or GDC from the axioms:
- The 4 sub-properties all align with the textual definitions by limiting the general relations to only apply to a given type of
'specifically dependent continuant'. This suggests that the disjunctive ofSDC or GDCwas added later and not fully implemented. - The textual definition of
'aggregate bearer of'states that an object aggregate bears an SDC in virtue of every one of its members bearing an instance of that type of SDC. Since BFO_0000196'bearer of'holds between an'independent continuant'and an SDC, this cannot logically hold for GDCs. - The current labels 'aggregate bearer of' and 'inheres in aggregate' strongly imply that these should adhere to the restrictions imposed by
'bearer of'and'inheres in'and it will confuse some users if they do not and their labels are not changed.
Reasons to instead modify the textual definitions:
- Counter to point 1 above, these relations are currently not sub-properties of
'bearer of'and'inheres in'respectively. This suggests that they may not have been intended to be similarly restricted. However, it should be noted that this may simply be due to the CCO relations pre-dating BFO 2020 as well as the switch to using'generically depends on'for ICEs instead of'inheres in'. - Expanding the textual definitions and maintaining the logica 4F75 l axioms enables these relations to be used to connect groups of people (organizations, etc.) to information content entities in a way that could be useful.
Finally, regardless of which above alternative is implemented, the sub-properties of 'aggregate bearer of' and 'inheres in aggregate' should be deprecated. This is in line with the previous deprecation of the parallel relations 'has disposition', 'has quality', and 'has role'. The rationale there was that those relations added no new semantic content and their existence created the opportunity for modeling the same data in 2 different ways, thereby causing confusion and impeding interoperability. The same rationale applies here. Note that 'has capability' and its inverse 'capability of' have survived for other reasons. If those reasons are still valid, then 'aggregate has capability' and 'capability of aggregate' may be kept.