Dear all,
The discussion is interesting, I have been down with a cold and have not been
able to comment earlier. Martin is right that this corner of CRM has not been
much discussed the last 15 years. The inheritance hierarchy is
E73 Information Object
| \
E36 Visual Item \
| \
E37 Mark E33 Linguistic Object
| /
E34 Inscription
I start at the bottom with E34 Inscription. Although the class name should be
considered a sign without semantic content, I found the OED definition quite
clarifying:
“ Inscription… 2. concrete. That which is inscribed; a piece of writing or
lettering upon something; a set of characters or words written, engraved, or
otherwise traced upon a surface; esp. a legend, description, or record traced
upon some hard substance for the sake of durability, as on a monument,
building, stone, tablet, medal, coin, vase, etc.”
So an inscription is a linguistic object applied to (traced upon) something.
This is the essence of the E34 Inscription except that being a subclass of E73
restructed to E36 Visual Item it is the abstract content and the abstract
form/visual appearance and not the physical thing. An inscription need not to
be short, e.g. the inscription of the law text found at Gortyn at southern
Crete comprising about 640 lines of text. So the word ‘short’ should be deleted
in the scope note of E37 Mark.
The class name “Mark” of E37 is clearly without semantic content since the word
has long series of different meanings.
Comments to the new scope note:
The phrase “This class comprises symbols, signs, signatures or short texts
applied to instances of E24 Physical Human-Made Thing by arbitrary techniques”
is fine and make all inscriptions instances of E37 Mark.
The extra explanation/specification “in order to indicate the creator, owner,
dedications, purpose, etc.” is too restrictive. A short description of a
person’s life found on a Roman tomb stone or at a baroque epitaph or the law
text from Gortyn are not created “in order to indicate the creator, owner,
dedications, purpose”, may be in order to “etc.” In my view the phrase should
be deleted and can be restated via examples.
The phrase “Instances of E37 Mark do not represent the actual image of a mark,
but the abstract ideal” follows from the fact that E37 Mark is a subclass of
E36 Visual Item and is not needed. May be a reformulation?
The new scope note can be
"This class comprises symbols, signs, signatures or texts applied to instances
of E24 Physical Human-Made Thing by arbitrary techniques. E37 Mark is a
subclass of E36 Visual Item and thus Instances of E37 Mark do not represent the
actual image of a mark, but an abstract ideal, as they use to be codified in
reference documents that are used in cultural documentation. This class
specifically excludes features that have no semantic significance, such as
scratches or tool marks. These should be documented as instances of E25
Human-Made Feature."
To the A-E discussion
A and B, all marks and linguistic objects are instances of E73 Information
Object
C, D, E yes to all.
Best,
Christian-Emil
________________________________
From: Crm-sig <crm-sig-boun...@ics.forth.gr> on behalf of Øyvind Eide
<lis...@oeide.no>
Sent: 18 January 2020 12:53
To: Ethan Gruber
Cc: crm-sig
Subject: Re: [Crm-sig] ISSUE: Scope note of E37 Mark
Dear all,
Given this answer to E is part of documentation practice, could it be solved by
double instantiation?
All the best,
Øyvind
Am 17.01.2020 um 22:18 schrieb Ethan Gruber
<ewg4x...@gmail.com<mailto:ewg4x...@gmail.com>>:
I agree with your assertion of D: that not all inscriptions are marks.
I disagree with E. A mark can most certainly be a letter or combination of
letters. Have you ever noticed the letter "P" on an American coin? It's a mint
mark representing Philadelphia. The "SC" characters on a Roman coin correspond
to the authority of the Senate. These are obviously linguistic objects that
carry a narrower semantic meaning as defined in the scope note for E37 Mark.
Ethan
On Fri, Jan 17, 2020 at 3:49 PM Robert Sanderson
<rsander...@getty.edu<mailto:rsander...@getty.edu>> wrote:
I think that I agree 😊 To be clearer about the inheritance that we’re
discussing:
* A) All Marks are Symbolic Objects
* B) All Linguistic Objects are Symbolic Objects
* C) All Inscriptions are Linguistic Objects
* D) All Inscriptions are Marks
* E) No Marks which are not also Inscriptions are Linguistic Objects
I believe the question is whether the last two assertions above are accurate.
For D, I would argue that the Balliol sign is not a Mark, as the symbolic
content is not related to the intents given in the scope note, and thus either
the scope note should be changed to remove the intents and be clearer about the
nature of the class, or Inscription should not be a subclass of Mark.
For E, I would argue that if “short text” is included in the scope for the Mark
class, then there must be some Marks that are Linguistic Objects as short text
implies that the symbols encode some natural language. I think that the scope
note should be changed to remove “short text” to avoid this issue. Marks should
be explicitly NOT text and only symbols, and if there is a linguistic
interpretation of the content, then they should instead be Inscriptions.
Hope that clarifies!
Rob
From: Martin Doerr <mar...@ics.forth.gr<mailto:mar...@ics.forth.gr>>
Date: Friday, January 17, 2020 at 10:35 AM
To: Robert Sanderson <rsander...@getty.edu<mailto:rsander...@getty.edu>>,
crm-sig <Crm-sig@ics.forth.gr<mailto:Crm-sig@ics.forth.gr>>
Subject: Re: [Crm-sig] ISSUE: Scope note of E37 Mark
Dear Robert,
Yes, that is a good question!
For a very long time, we had no feedback to this part f the CRM.
Be careful not to inherit things upstream. If a Mark is also a Linguistic
Object, then it is in particular an Inscription.
But a Mark needs not be an Inscriptions.
However, we must take care that the "non-Inscription marks" are not separated
out as complement, because following all the discussions we had in the past,
there are enough marks cannot be clearly distinguished from inscriptions.
So, the scope not should admit the existence of marks in this wider sense,
which are not the codified monograms etc.
isn't it?
best,
martin
On 1/17/2020 6:47 PM, Robert Sanderson wrote:
Dear all,
I’m happy with the changes (modulo one typo, below), but would propose also
that there should be clarification about the inclusion of “short texts” in a
class that does not inherit from Linguistic Object. It seems strange to me that
Mark would include “Made by RS in 1780”, when that is clearly text with a
language. That would, IMO, need to be E37 Inscription if we wanted to talk
about the content / meaning, rather than just the visual appearance of some
symbols. Yet the scope note for Mark makes assertions about the intent, which
implies a semantic understanding of the language encoded by the symbols.
Relatedly … as Inscription is a subclass of Mark, that means that all
inscriptions are also Marks, and thus all inscriptions are to indicate the
creator, owner, dedications, purpose etc. Either the “etc” covers all intents
(at which point it is a worthless clause) or there are some texts that are
inscribed on objects that do not count as inscriptions.
One of the examples for Inscription is “Kilroy was here” … that does not seem
to fall under the definition of Mark, given the intent clause. Similarly the
“Keep off the grass” sign example is to instruct the students of Balliol to not
walk on the lawn. That seems very different from a Mark … yet it is one?
Finally, I think there is a minor typo in the new sentence. I think it should
read: … as they are used to codify the marks in reference documents …
(or something like that)
Many thanks,
Rob
From: Crm-sig
<crm-sig-boun...@ics.forth.gr><mailto:crm-sig-boun...@ics.forth.gr> on behalf
of Martin Doerr <mar...@ics.forth.gr><mailto:mar...@ics.forth.gr>
Date: Friday, January 17, 2020 at 8:25 AM
To: crm-sig <Crm-sig@ics.forth.gr><mailto:Crm-sig@ics.forth.gr>
Subject: [Crm-sig] ISSUE: Scope note of E37 Mark
Dear All,
There were questions about the level of abstraction of E37 Mark. Therefore I
rewrite, following the relevant discussions when this class was defined. The
argument was that it should directly link to the codes that are used in museum
documentation for (registered) marks.
Old scope note:
Scope note: This class comprises symbols, signs, signatures or short
texts applied to instances of E24 Physical Human-Made Thing by arbitrary
techniques in order to indicate the creator, owner, dedications, purpose, etc.
This class specifically excludes features that have no semantic significance,
such as scratches or tool marks. These should be documented as instances of E25
Human-Made Feature.
NEW
Scope note: This class comprises symbols, signs, signatures or short
texts applied to instances of E24 Physical Human-Made Thing by arbitrary
techniques in order to indicate the creator, owner, dedications, purpose, etc.
Instances of E37 Mark do not represent the actual image of a mark, but the
abstract ideal, as they use to be codified in reference documents that are used
in cultural documentation.
This class specifically excludes features that have no semantic significance,
such as scratches or tool marks. These should be documented as instances of E25
Human-Made Feature.
Can someone provide a relevant example from an authority document of marks?
Such as
Castagno, John. Old Masters: Signatures and Monograms, 1400–Born 1800. Lanham,
MD: Scarecrow Press, 1996.
Caplan, H. H. and Bob Creps. Encyclopedia of Artists' Signatures, Symbols &
Monograms: Old Masters to Modern, North American & European plus More; 25,000
Examples. Land O'Lakes, FL: Dealer's Choice Books, 1999.
--
------------------------------------
Dr. Martin Doerr
Honorary Head of the
Center for Cultural Informatics
Information Systems Laboratory
Institute of Computer Science
Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH)
N.Plastira 100, Vassilika Vouton,
GR70013 Heraklion,Crete,Greece
Vox:+30(2810)391625
Email: mar...@ics.forth.gr<mailto:mar...@ics.forth.gr>
Web-site: http://www.ics.forth.gr/isl
CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the Getty. Do not click links or
open attachments unless you verify the sender and know the content is safe.
--
------------------------------------
Dr. Martin Doerr
Honorary Head of the
Center for Cultural Informatics
Information Systems Laboratory
Institute of Computer Science
Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH)
N.Plastira 100, Vassilika Vouton,
GR70013 Heraklion,Crete,Greece
Vox:+30(2810)391625
Email: mar...@ics.forth.gr<mailto:mar...@ics.forth.gr>
Web-site: http://www.ics.forth.gr/isl
CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the Getty. Do not click links or
open attachments unless you verify the sender and know the content is safe.
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