Issue 578: CRMSci O19 Property Labels Minor Correction?

Post by George Bruseker (22 October 2021) 

Dear all,

I am manually correcting some ontology files (horror) and changing the nomenclature from the previous names for O19 which were:

has found object 
(was object found by)

up until version 1.2.6 of the document. 

Then it changed, rightly (mostly), to:

encountered object 
was object encountered at

which is how it has been ever since.

So, what's my problem? The inverse property label sounds like we named it poorly? Particularly the preposition 'at' has a locative flavour that to me would indicate that the object pointed at would be a place. The object pointed at, however, is of course the encounter event. 

I do not remember if we made the choice above on purpose or if this is just a mistake, but reading it now it strikes me as not the best choice.

I think typically we would use 'by' (which is also problematic since sounds like it should point to an actor) or maybe 'in' which again sounds slightly locative, although might work better with an event.

Anyhow, does anyone else see this as a problem or is it just me?

Best,

George

Post by Rob Sanderson (22 October 2021) 

+1 to changing it from at, which definitely implies location.

object_encountered_during seems good to me, thank you Melanie!

Rob

Post by Eleni Tsoulouha (22 October 2021)

Hi all,

Not that i m 100% confident concerning my intuitions for English, but I think that *during* is more suited for relations btw temporal entities (where the one serves as a temporal frame of sorts for the other) OR for relations btw temporal entities and their location-times (aka timespans).  an encountered object is neither of those things, so maybe encountered in would do best??

Btw., i think that this reading is more consistent with how we've been using the adverbial throughout the CRM (again, i may be wrong).

all the best,

Eleni

Post by Franco Niccolucci (23 October 2021)

Dear George, all

“during” sounds fine.

In my opinion, not because “at” is locative and implies a place, which is not true: see e.g. "at present", "at midnight", "at some point in time". But because it implies precision, an exact point in time, at the time granularity level assumed, so that “at 5PM” means that arriving at 17:01 you are late.

Events always have a duration, even milliseconds. Thus, since the range of the inverse property is event, “during (event X)” sounds correct, “at (event X)” would not. “During" is also used in the scope note “... encountered or observed as present during the event”.

The story would be different - and “at” correct - if the range were an E61 Time Primitive.

Best

Franco