AW: [topicmaps-comment] multilingual thesaurus - language,scope ,and topic naming constraint

["Bandholtz, Thomas" <thomas.bandholtz@koeln.sema.slb.com>]

Title: AW: [topicmaps-comment] multilingual thesaurus - language,scope ,and topic naming constraint

>> 2. GEMET *is* only attributing the name to be of a certain language - nothing else!

> Right, but how do you solve the ambiguity for the (spanish) user ?

What ambiguity? The spanish (speaking) user will generally filter text attributes that are marked xml:lang="es". He does not need to care about the other languages if he has no special interest in that.

>> 3. A basename is a basename and not an association.

>Well, a basename ISA string. what makes it a name is it's participation  in
>a topic-basename association...sorry to be provoking ;-)

Sorry, but in the TM lingo a basename is a topic *attribute* while an association can only be defined between topics using their IDs (!).

>> 4. Back to the roots: The identifier of a topic is ID and not basename. If you refer to a topic you use IDREF and not the basename.

>How does this relate to Bernards problem ?

I am afraid I liked Kal Ahmed very much when I read:
"5) Don't apply the TNC...sorry, couldn't resist that one ;-)"

I think the problem is basically in the Topic Naming Constraint. I like the following (from ISO)
"Any two or more topic links that reference the same subject by means of their identity attributes are equivalent to a single topic link that has the union of the characteristics (the names, occurrences, and associations) of both topic links. The two or more topic links may be merged, and/or applications may process and/or render them as if they have been merged."

This makes sence. But I never liked the TNC. Even Topics referring to the same subject may use different names ...

Why do we need TNC?

Thomas