Semantic-Web

Ontology Languages
Part I: RDF

Pascal Hitzler, Markus Krötzsch, Sebastian Rudolph

Informatik 2009 Lübeck

[Link]
 Outline

• A Brief Motivation
• RDF
• Simple Semantics for RDF
• RDF Schema
• Semantics for RDF(S)

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 2
 Why Semantic Web Modelling?

• Initially, the Web was made for humans reading webpages.

• But there‘s too much information out there to be entirely
checked by a human with a specific information need.
• Machines can process large amounts of data.
• Normal Web data (such as HTML) is not suitable for
content-sensitive machine processing (ambiguous, relies on
background knowledge, etc.)
• Semantic Web is concerned with representing information
distributed across the Web in a machine-interpretable way.

• So, why not use XML?

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 3
 Shortcomings of (Pure) XML

• Task: express ”The Book ‘Foundations of Semantic Web

Technologies’ is published by CRC Press.”
• Many options:
<published>
<publisher>CRC Press</publisher>
<book>Foundations of Semantic Web Technologies</book>
</published>

<publisher name="CRC Press">

<published book=”Foundations of Semantic Web Technologies/>
</publisher>

<book name="Foudations of Semantic Web Technologies">

<published publisher="CRC Press”/>
</book>

• ambiguity and tree structure inappropriate for intended

purpose
P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 4
 Web-Wide Linked Open Data –
The Vision Becoming True

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 5
 RDF: Graphs instead of Trees

• Solution: representation by directed

graphs

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 6
 RDF

• “Resource Description Framework”

• W3C Recommendation
([Link]
• RDF is a data model (not one specific syntax)
– originally designed for providing metadata for Web
resources, later used for more general purposes
– encodes structured information
– universal machine-readable exchange format

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 7
 Building blocks for RDF Graphs

• URIs
• literals
• blank nodes (aka: empty nodes, bnodes)

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 8
 URIs - Idea

• URI = Uniform Resource Identifier

• allow for denoting resources in a world-wide
unambiguous way
• resources can be any object that possesses a
clear identity (within the context of a given
application)
• Examples: books, cities, humans, publishers,
but also relations between those, abstract
concepts, etc.
• already realized in some domains: e.g., ISBN
for books

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 9
 URIs - Syntax

• Builds on concept of URLs but not every URI

refers to a Web document
(but often the URL of a document is used as its
URI)
• URI starts with so-called URI schema separated
from the following part by ":”
(e.g, http, ftp, mailto)
• mostly hierarchically organized

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 10
 Self-defined URIs

• necessary if no URI exists (yet) for a resource

(or it is not known)
• strategy for avoiding unwanted clashes: use
http URIs of webspace you control
• this also allows you to provide some
documentation about the URI
• How to distinguish URI of a resource from URI
of the associated documents describing it?
• Example: URI for "Othello”
– don’t use:
[Link]
– rather use:
[Link]
P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 11
 Literals

• used for representing data values

• written down as strings
• interpreted via assigned datatype
• literals without explicitly associated
datatype are treated like strings

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 12
 Bnodes

• used to state existence of an entity the

reference of which is not known
• from a logic perspective: existentially
quantified variables

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 13
 Graphs as Triple Sets

• there are several ways for representing

graphs
• in RDF we see graphs as set of vertex-
edge-vertex triples

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 14
 Graphs as Triple Sets

• there are several ways for representing

graphs
• in RDF we see graphs as set of vertex-
edge-vertex triples

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 15
 Graphs as Triple Sets

• there are several ways for representing

graphs
• in RDF we see graphs as set of vertex-
edge-vertex triples

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 16
 RDF Triples

• constitutents of an RDF triple

subject predicate object

• terms inspired by linguistics but doesn’t always

coincide
• eligible instantiations:
subject : URI or bnode
predicate : URI
objekt : URI or bnode or literal
P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 17
 Turtle - An Easy Syntax for RDF

Turtle notation:
– unabbreviated URIs in <…>
– literals in “…”
– period at the end of each triple
– extra spaces and linebreaks outside of names irrelevant

<[Link] <[Link] <[Link] .

<[Link] <[Link] "Foundations of Semantic Web Technologies" .
<[Link] <[Link] "CRC Press" .

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 18
 Turtle - An Easy Syntax for RDF

Turtle notation:
– unabbreviated URIs in <…> but can be abbreviated by namespaces
– literals in “…”
– period at the end of each triple
– extra spaces and linebreaks outside of names irrelevant

@prefix book: <[Link] .

@prefix ex: <[Link] .
@prefix crc: <[Link] .
book:uri ex:publishedBy crc:uri .
book:uri ex:title "Foundations of Semantic Web Technologies" .
crc:uri ex:name "CRC Press" .

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 19
 Turtle - An Easy Syntax for RDF

Turtle notation:
– unabbreviated URIs in <…> but can be abbreviated by namespaces
– literals in “…”
– period at the end of each triple
– extra spaces and linebreaks outside of names irrelevant

@prefix book: <[Link] .

@prefix ex: <[Link] .
@prefix crc: <[Link] . repeated subjects may be le0 out
book:uri ex:publishedBy crc:uri ;
book:uri ex:title "Foundations of Semantic Web Technologies" .
crc:uri ex:name "CRC Press" .

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 20
 Turtle - An Easy Syntax for RDF

Turtle notation:
– unabbreviated URIs in <…> but can be abbreviated by namespaces
– literals in “…”
– period at the end of each triple
– extra spaces and linebreaks outside of names irrelevant

@prefix book: <[Link] .

@prefix ex: <[Link] .
@prefix crc: <[Link] . repeated subjects may be le0 out
book:uri ex:publishedBy crc:uri ;
book:uri ex:title "Foundations of Semantic Web Technologies“ ;
ex:author book:Hitzler, book:Krötzsch, book:Rudolph .
crc:uri ex:name "CRC Press" . several objects can be
assigned to the same
subject‐predicate pairs

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 21
 XML-Syntax of RDF

• there is also an XML syntax for RDF

• it’s for machines, so we don’t deal with it here

<rdf:Description rdf:about="[Link]
<ex:title>Foundations of Semantic Web Technologies</ex:title>
<ex:publishedBy>
<rdf:Description rdf:about="[Link]
<ex:name>CRC Press</ex:name>
</rdf:Description>
</ex:publishedBy>
</rdf:Description>

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 22
 Datatypes in RDF

• by now: literals were untyped, interpreted as strings

(making e.g. "02”, ”2”, ”2.0” all different)
• typing literals with datatypes allows for more adequate
(semantic = meaning-appropriate) treatment of values
• datatypes denoted by URIs and can be freely chosen
• frequently: xsd datatypes from XML
• syntax of typed literal:
"datavalue"^^datatype-URI

• rdf:XMLLiteral is the only datatype that is part of the

RDF standard
• denotes arbitrary balanced XML “snippets”

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 23
 Datatypes – the Abstract View

• Example: xsd:decimal
lexical space value space
datatype mapping
"3.14"

"3.14000" 3,14

"+03.14"
-2,5

"-2.5"
100
"100.00"

"3.14"="+03.14" holds for xsd:decimal but not for

xsd:string

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 24
 Datatypes in RDF – Example

• Graph:

• Turtle:
@prefix xsd: <[Link] ."
<[Link]
<[Link] "RDF Primer"^^xsd:string ;"
<[Link]
"2004-02-10"^^xsd:date .

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 25
 Language Settings and Datatypes

• language settings only applicable to untyped literals

<[Link] "
<[Link]
"Initiation à RDF"@fr, "RDF Primer"@en .

• distinct types or language settings – distinct literals

<[Link] <[Link] "

"CRC Press" ,"
"CRC Press"@en ,"
"CRC Press"^^xsd:string .

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 26
 n-ary Relationships

• Cooking with RDF:

“For the preparation of Chutney, we need the following:
1 lb green mango, 1 tsp. Cayenne pepper, ...”

dish ingredient amount

chutney green mango 1 lb
chutney cayenne pepper 1 tsp.

• solved by auxiliary nodes (may be blank)

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 27
 n-ary Relationships

• Turtle version 1:
@prefix ex: <[Link] .
ex:Chutney ex:hasIngredient _:id1 .
_:id1 ex:ingredient ex:greenMango; ex:amount "1lb" .
• Turtle version 2:
@prefix ex: <[Link] .
ex:Chutney ex:hasIngredient
[ ex:ingredient ex:greenMango; ex:amount "1lb" ] .

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 28
 Special Datastructures in RDF

• open lists (containers)

• closed lists (collections)
• reified triples

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 29
 Open Lists (Container)

• Graph:

• by rdf:type we assign a list type to the root node

– rdf:Seq – ordered liste (sequence)
– rdf:Bag – unordered list
– rdf:Alt – set of alternatives or choices

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 30
 Closed Lists (Collections)

• Graph:

• Abbreviation for Turtle:

@prefix book: <[Link] .
book:uri <[Link]
( book:uri/Hitzler book:uri/Krötzsch book:uri/Rudolph ) .

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 31
Reification

• How to model propositions about propositions such

as:
„The Detective supposes that the butler killed the
gardener.“

ex:supposes
 Reification

• Solution: auxiliary node for nested proposition

ex:supposes

rdf:subject rdf:predicate rdf:object

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 33
 Simple Semantics

• RDF is focused on information exchange and

interoperability
• answers of RDF tools to
entailment queries
should coincide
• therefore, formal
semantics needed
• defined in a model-
theoretic way, i.e. we
start by defining
interpretations

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 34
 Simple Semantics

• Interpretations in RDF:

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 35
 Simple Semantics

• when is a triple valid in

an interpretation?

• a graph is valid, if all

its triples are
• this settles the case
for „grounded“
graphs
• graph with blank nodes
is valid if they can be
mapped to elements
such that the condition
on the right is satisfied
P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 36
 Simple Entailment

• this model theory defines simple entailment

• this is essentially graph matching with bnodes being
wildcards (more precisely: graph homomorphism)

Example: the graph

simply entails the graph

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 37
 Schema Knowledge with RDF(S)

• RDF allows for specification of factual data

• = propositions about single resources

(individuals) and their relationships
• desirable: propositions about generic groups of
individuals, such as the class of publishers, of
organizations, or of persons
• in database terminology: schema knowledge
• RDF Schema (RDFS): part of the RDF W3C
recommendation

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 38
 Classes and Instances

book:uri rdf:type ex:Textbook .

– characterizes the specific book as an instance of

the (self-defined) class of textbooks

– class-membership not exclusive: "

book:uri rdf:type ex:Enjoyable .

– URIs can be typed as class-identifiers:"

ex:Textbook rdf:type rdfs:Class ."

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 39
 Subclasses

• we want to express that every textbook is a book, e.g.,

that every instance of the class ex:Textbook is
“automatically” an instance of the class ex:Book
• realized by rdfs:subClassOf property:

ex:Textbook rdfs:subClassOf ex:Book ."

• rdfs:subClassOf is defined to be transitive and reflexive

• rule of thumb:
rdf:type means ∈
rdfs:subClassOf means ⊆

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 40
 Properties

• technical term for Relations, Correspondencies

• Property names usually occur in predicate position
in factoid RDF triples
• characterize, how two resources are related
• mathematically: set of pairs:
married_with = {(Adam,Eva),(Brad,Angelina),...}
• URI can be marked as property name by typing it
accordingly:

ex:publishedBy rdf:type rdf:Property .

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 41
 Subproperties

• in analogy to subclass relationships

• representation in RDFS via rdfs:subPropertyOf e.g.:
ex:happilyMarriedWith rdf:subPropertyOf rdf:marriedWith .

• then, given
ex:Markus ex:happilyMarriedWith ex:Anja ."

we can deduce
ex:Markus ex:marriedWith ex:Anja ."

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 42
 Property Restrictions

• properties may give hints what types the linked resources

have, e.g. we know that ex:publishedBy connects
publications with publishers

• i.e., for all URIs a, b where we know

a ex:publishedBy b .

we want to automatically follow:

a rdf:type ex:Publication ."
b rdf:type ex:Publisher ."

• this generic correspondency can be encoded in RDFS:

ex:publishedBy rdfs:domain ex:Publication ."
ex:publishedBy rdfs:range ex:Publisher .

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 43
 Property Restrictions

• with property restrictions, semantic interdependencies

between properties and classes can be specified
• Caution: property restrictions are interpreted globally and
conjunctively, e.g.

ex:authorOf rdfs:range ex:Cookbook ."

ex:authorOf rdfs:range ex:Storybook . "

means: everything which is authored by somebody is

both a cookbook and a storybook
• thus: always use most generic classes for domain/range
statements

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 44
 Additional Information

• used to add human-readable information (comments or

names)
• for compatibility reasons graph-based representation
recommended; set of properties for that purpose:
– rdfs:label assigns an alternative name (encoded as
literal) to an arbitrary ressource
– rdfs:comment assigns a more comprehensive comment
(also literal)
– rdfs:seeAlso, rdfs:definedBy refer to resources (URIs!)
containing further information about the subject
resource

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 45
 RDFS Entailment

• RDFS interpretations take care of RDF(S)-specific

vocabulary by imposing additional conditions on
simple interpretations:
– all URIs and bnodes are of type rdf:Resource
– triple predicates are of type rdf:Property
– all well-typed and untyped literals are of type rdf:Literal
– types of triple subjects/objects correspond to
rdfs:domain/rdfs:range statements
– rdfs:subClassOf and rdfs:subPropertyOf are interpreted
reflexive and transitive and “inheriting“
– well-formed XML-Literals are mapped into LV, ill-formed
ones go somewhere else
– ...and many more

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 46
 RDFS Entailment – Automation

• RDFS entailment can be decided via rule-like

deduction calculus (NP-complete)

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 47
 Semantics of RDFS via Translation
into FOL

• other option for defining RDF(S)

semantics: embedding into first order logic
• 2 Problems:
– FOL doesn‘t provide literals/datatypes
• can be tackled by „built-in“ predicates
– straight forward translation s p o .  p(s,o)
does not work, as p might also occur in subject
or object position
• solved by alternative translation with one ternary
predicate: s p o .  triple(s,p,o)

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 48
 Semantics of RDFS via Translation
into FOL

• RDF graph is translated into FOL theory by

introducing statement triple(s,p,o) for every triple
spo.
• for every blank node, one distinct variable is used
(whereas URIs and literals are treated as
constants)
• the final translation is obtained by conjunctively
combining all the obtained statements and then
existentially quantifying over all variables

Markus Krötzsch, Sebas=an Rudolph: Seman=c Web Modelling Languages, ESSLLI 2009, Bordeaux. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 49
 Semantics of RDFS via Translation
into FOL

• RDFS semantics can then be implemented

by axiomatising the deduction calculus:

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 50
 Deployment of RDF

• today there is a variety of RDF tools

• software libraries for virtually every
programming language
• freely available systems for handling large sets
of RDF data (so-called RDF stores or triple
stores)
• increasingly supported by commercial actors
(e.g. Oracle)
• basis for several data formats: RSS 1.0, XMP
(Adobe), SVG (vector graphics format)

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 51
 RDF(S) as Ontology Language?

• RDFS language features allow for modeling

certain semantic aspects of a domain of
interest
• hence, RDFS can be seen as a lightweight
ontology language

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 52
 RDF(S) as Ontology Language?

Shortcomings of RDF(S):
• “weak” semantics:

ex:speaksWith rdfs:domain ex:Homo ."

ex:Homo rdfs:subClassOf ex:Primates .
does not entail
ex:speaksWith rdfs:domain ex:Primates .

• expressivity: no negative information can be

specified, no cardinality, no disjunction…

P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph: Seman=c Web Ontology Languages, Informa=k 2009, Lübeck. [Link]=c‐web‐[Link] 53
 References

• W3C Specification: [Link]

• Pascal Hitzler, Markus Krötzsch,

Sebastian Rudolph, York Sure,
Semantic Web – Grundlagen.
Springer, 2008.
[Link]
(In German.)

• Pascal Hitzler, Markus Krötzsch,

Sebastian Rudolph,
Foundations of Semantic Web Technologies.
Chapman & Hall/CRC, 2009.
[Link]
(Grab a flyer from us.)