--- a/rdf-primer/index.html Mon Feb 03 23:14:38 2014 +0100
+++ b/rdf-primer/index.html Mon Feb 03 23:43:48 2014 +0100
@@ -728,7 +728,7 @@
<p>Lines 8-12 show how Turtle provides a shorthand for a set of
triples with the same subject. Lines 9-12 specify the predicate-object
-part of triples that habe <code><http://example.org/bob#me></code> as
+part of triples that have <code><http://example.org/bob#me></code> as
their subject. The semicolons at the end of lines 9-11 indicate that
the predicate-object pair that follows it is part of
a new triple that uses the most recent subject shown in the data — in
@@ -923,8 +923,10 @@
<dd>RDF/XML [[RDF-SYNTAX-GRAMMAR]] (<a
href="#rdf-xml-example">single-graph example</a>)
provides an XML syntax for RDF
- graphs. RDF/XML was the only normative syntax for RDF when RDF
- 1.0 was published in 2004. </dd>
+ graphs. When RDF was original developed in the late 1990s, this was its
+ only syntax, and some people still call this syntax "RDF". In 2001, a
+ precursor to Turtle called "N3" was proposed, and gradually the other
+ syntaxes listed here have been adopted and standardizedR. </dd>
</dl>
<p>For more information about these syntaxes consult the references.</p>
@@ -936,15 +938,53 @@
<section id="section-semantics">
<h2>Semantics of RDF Graphs</h2>
+
+ <p>An overarching goal in the use of RDF is to be able to
+ automatically merge useful information from multiple sources to
+ form a larger collection that is still coherent and useful. As a
+ starting point for this merging, all the information is conveyed
+ in the same simple style, subject-predicate-object triples, as
+ described above. To keep the information coherent, however, we
+ need more than just a standard syntax; we also need agreement
+ about the semantics of these triples. </p>
+
+ <p>By this point in the Primer, the reader is likely to have an
+ intuitive grasp of the semantics of RDF:</p>
+ <ol>
+ <li>The IRIs used to name the subject, predicate, and object are "global" in scope,
+ naming the same thing each time they are used.</li>
+ <li>Each triple is "true" exactly when the predicate relation actually exists between
+ the subject and the predicate.</li>
+ <li>An RDF graph is "true" exactly when all the triples in it are "true".</li>
+ </ol>
+ <p>These notions,
+ and others, are specified with mathematical precision in the RDF
+ Semantics document [RDF11-MT].</p>
+
+ <p>One of the benefits of RDF having these declarative semantics
+ is that systems can make logical inferences. That is, given a
+ certain set of input triples which they accept as true, systems
+ can in some circumstances deduce that other triples must,
+ logically, also be true. We say the first set of triples "entails"
+ the additional triples. These systems, called Reasoners, can also
+ sometimes deduce that the given input triples contradict each
+ other. </p>
+
+ <p>Given the flexibility of RDF, where new vocabularies can be
+ created when people want to use new concepts, there are many
+ different kinds of reasoning one might want to do. When a
+ specific kind of reasoning seems to be useful in many different
+ applications, it can be documented as an <a
+ href="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf11-mt/#semantic-extensions-and-entailment-regimes">"entailment regime"</a>.
+ Several entailment regimes are specified in RDF Semantics. For
+ technical description of some other entailment regimes and how to
+ use them with SPARQL, see [[SPARQL11-ENTAILMENT]].
+ Note that some
+ entailment regimes are fairly easy to implement and reasoning can
+ be done quickly, while others require a very sophistical
+ techniques to implement efficiently. </p>
- <p>RDF is grounded in a formal model-theoretic semantics which is
- specified in the RDF
- Semantics document [[RDF11-MT]]. This document
- specifies truth-preserving conditions of RDF graphs as
- well as valid derivations from RDF graphs. Such logical
- consequences are called <a
- href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2013/CR-rdf11-mt-20131105/#semantic-extensions-and-entailment-regimes">entailments</a>. For
- example, consider the following two statements:</p>
+ <p>As a sample entailment, consider the following two statements:</p>
<pre>
<code>ex:bob foaf:knows ex:alice .</code>
<code>foaf:knows rdfs:domain foaf:Person .</code>