Re: defconcept versus assertion

On Aug 22, 2007, at 7:46 PM, Cameron Ross wrote:

> Hi Thomas,
>
> The reason for my question is that I'm attempting to describe the  
> PowerLoom
> ontology using CLIF which does not directly support things like  
> defconcept
> and the like.  Therefore, I would like to define concepts using  
> something
> like (subsetOf Dog Animal).  Based on what you've said I should be  
> able map
> this into PowerLoom using (assuming Animal is already defined within
> PowerLoom as a concept):
>
> (defconcept Dog)
> (assert (subset-of Dog Animal))

Correct.

Any of the defconcept, defrelation, etc. keywords (the ones that  
start with ":") are just shorthand notation for things that could be  
expressed using assertions, and PowerLoom doesn't really care which  
method you use.  The only operational difference between including  
things in DEF... and having the assertions separate is that if you  
redefine a concept or relation, then any assertions introduced in the  
previous definition are retracted, but any separate assertions are  
retained.