Re: [legaldocml] A couple of quick remarks on the example

[Fabio Vitali <fabio@cs.unibo.it>]

Dear Tom, 

Il giorno 10/mag/2012, alle ore 18.03, Thomas R. Bruce ha scritto:

> Fabio et al:
> 
> a) I want to take a little more time to look at the system of URIs for crossreferences.  I can't really tell what assumptions it embeds about either the contents of the strings or the method of dereferencing them, but that's mostly a product of my own ignorance, I imagine.

Please ask questions. I will be delighted to answer to them. 

> b)  Can this schema accomodate the following example gracefully?
> 
> "It shall be illegal to
> 
> + dance around the room
> + sing silly songs
> + remove certain articles of your clothing
> + discuss the baseball case at legal AI conferences
> 
> except on Tuesday"

There are two answers to this question. The first is: can the schema accommodate the physical structure of the example? The answer is yes, no big deal: 

<section id="sec32">
	<num>32</num>
	<content>
		<blockList id="sec32-lst1">
			<listIntroduction>It shall be illegal to</listIntroduction>
			<item id="sec32-lst1-itm1"><p>dance around the room</p></item>
			<item id="sec32-lst1-itm2"><p>sing silly songs</p></item>
			<item id="sec32-lst1-itm3"><p>remove certain articles of your clothing</p></item>
			<item id="sec32-lst1-itm4"><p>discuss the baseball case at legal AI conferences</p></item>
			<listConclusion>except on Tuesday</listConclusion>
		</blockList>
	</content>
</section>

The second answer is: can the schema accommodate the semantics, i.e. an analysis of the legal meaning of the example? The answer is no, XML is not meant for semantics. XML is a syntax to express documents, some of which have an implicit semantics accessible through the interpretation of natural text (e.g., plain text legal documents) and some have an explicit semantics accessible through the interpretation of logical formulas (e.g., RDF assertions). Akoma Ntoso has a clear approach to that: we describe plain texts, and we ALLOW logical formulas, possibly placed somewhere else, to refer to individual fragments of text. The following is the same example, but with anchors that can be used as hooks for semantic analysis of the text. There is no such analysis, just a mechanism to allow such analysis to refer to the text: 

<references source="#FV">
	<TLCPerson id="FV" href="/ontology/person/FV" showAs="Fabio Vitali"/>
	<TLCEvent id="legalAIconferences" href="/ontology/event/conferences/legalAIconference" showAs="Legal AI conference"/>
	<TLCConcept id="prohibition" href="/ontology/concept/legal/prohibition" showAs="prohibition"/>
	<TLCConcept id="exception" href="/ontology/concept/legal/exception" showAs="exception"/>
	<TLCConcept id="dancing" href="/ontology/concept/activity/dancing" showAs="dancing"/>
	<TLCConcept id="singing" href="/ontology/concept/activity/singing" showAs="prohibition"/>
	<TLCConcept id="undressing" href="/ontology/concept/activity/undressing" showAs="prohibition"/>
	<TLCConcept id="discussing" href="/ontology/concept/activity/discussing" showAs="prohibition"/>
</references>
...
<section id="sec32b">
	<num>32 bis</num>
	<content>
		<blockList id="sec32b-lst1" refersTo="#prohibition">
			<listIntroduction>It shall be illegal to</listIntroduction>
			<item id="sec32b-lst1-itm1"><p><span refersTo="#dancing">dance</span> around the room</p></item>
			<item id="sec32b-lst1-itm2"><p><span refersTo="#singing">sing</span> silly songs</p></item>
			<item id="sec32b-lst1-itm3"><p><span refersTo="#undressing">remove</span> certain articles of your clothing</p></item>
			<item id="sec32b-lst1-itm4"><p><span refersTo="#discussing">discuss</span> the baseball case at <span refersTo="#legalAIconferences">legal AI conferences</span></p></item>
			<listConclusion><span refersTo="#exception">except on Tuesday</span></listConclusion>
		</blockList>
	</content>
</section>

I hope this satisfies you. 

Ciao

Fabio

--

Fabio Vitali                            Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly,
Dept. of Computer Science        Man got to sit and wonder "Why, why, why?'
Univ. of Bologna  ITALY               Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land,
phone:  +39 051 2094872              Man got to tell himself he understand.
e-mail: fabio@cs.unibo.it         Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007), "Cat's cradle"
http://vitali.web.cs.unibo.it/