Re: [Crm-sig] ISSUE: Scope note of E37 Mark

[Martin Doerr]

Dear Achille,

So, clearly,
This “… subclass of E25 Man-Made Feature intended to describe a 
particular feature (i.e., set of glyphs) created (i.e., written) on 
various kinds of support, having semiotic significance and the declared 
purpose of conveying a specific message towards a given recipient or 
group of recipients”

is a well justified class. It obviously is the carrier of a series of 
conceptual objects, one incorporating the other. It is not in the CRM, 
and not in any contradiction to E34 and E37.

It starts with the particular visual form, which incorporates its actual 
symbol arrangement, which incorporates the supposed original or intended 
symbol arrangement(eroded chars etc), which incorporates the expansion 
of abbreviations, which incorporates the propositional content, at 
least, this is the good practice in the CIL.

Then, we can identify E34 Inscription with one of those.

Then, we miss the generalization of the "Written Text" to any symbolic 
"marking", and the generalizations of E34 Inscription to the any such 
"marking" at the symbolic level. The latter is currently E37 Mark, 
regardless what people like "Mark" to be. A narrow definition of Mark, 
as Robert and Ethan suggests, would be a subclass of E37 Mark, and would 
need a new class code.
(Please do not confuse labels with definitions. Don't argue E37 must be 
something different, because it is called "mark".  You may instead argue 
for renaming E37...).

Does that make sense?

Cheers,

martin

On 1/20/2020 11:29 AM, Achille Felicetti wrote:
Dear Ethan, all,

A small contribution to this interesting discussion. As mentioned by 
Martin, Francesca Murano and I have investigated the linguistic, 
physical and conceptual aspect of inscriptions and texts in recent 
years. Our work is oriented towards the construction of an extension 
of the CIDOC CRM for epigraphy and ancient texts (CRMtex, 
http://www.cidoc-crm.org/crmtex/), and we have published our 
reflections in two papers that I report below for anyone interested 
(you can also download them from here: 
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1CbsRXJ6SdG6JT_QjKmJ98vgklz7Jx4sR):

1. A. Felicetti, F. Murano, P. Ronzino, F. Niccolucci (2015) CIDOC CRM 
and Epigraphy: a Hermeneutic Challenge, Paola Ronzino and 
Franco Niccolucci (eds.): Extending, Mapping and Focusing the CIDOC 
CRM (CRMEX 2015) Workshop, 19th International Conference on Theory 
and Practice of Digital Libraries (TPDL 2015), Poznan, 
Poland, September 17, 2015.

2. Felicetti, A., Murano, F., (2016), Scripta manent: a CIDOC CRM 
semiotic reading of ancient texts, «International Journal on Digital 
Libraries» 17/1, Springer, pp. 1-8, DOI: 10.1007/s00799-016-0189-z

In our works we have already highlighted the "weaknesses" of the E34 
and E37 classes with respect to epigraphy (see paragraph 4.3 of 
paper 1 and 4.2 of paper 2), as highlighted by Christian-Emil, and 
proposed some possible solutions concerning the text and its nature. I 
paste some excerpts here, and I refer you to reading the papers for 
more information. Regarding the E34 class, we stated that:

"In CIDOC CRM, textual entities are conceived as immaterial, and 
essentially conceptual, entities. Both the classes E33 Linguistic 
Object and E34 Inscription belong to the domain of conceptual 
objects, defined as “non-material products of our minds and other 
human produced data”, something that renders only in part the essence 
of what a text is, not taking into account its ‘materiality’ which is 
a fundamental component of its identity”

We did similar considerations for E37. Thus, a written text in our 
perspective is defined as the product of a semiotic process, 
involving an encoding (“writing”) and a decoding (“reading”) process. 
The scope note for the Written Text class says that it is a …

“… subclass of E25 Man-Made Feature intended to describe a particular 
feature (i.e., set of glyphs) created (i.e., written) on various kinds 
of support, having semiotic significance and the declared purpose 
of conveying a specific message towards a given recipient or group of 
recipients”

We have submitted a third paper on the subject to the Semantic Web 
Journal (special issue for Cultural Heritage) and is currently under 
review. I will also send you references of that if it is approved. 
Concerning the linguistic value of a text, an excerpt from it is 
reported below:


"Although every speech can be transposed into an equivalent written 
message, and vice versa, speech has a priority over writing, at least 
in four respects: phylogenetic, ontogenetic, functional and 
structural. In fact, all languages are spoken but not necessarily 
written; every human being learns to speak naturally spontaneously, 
the ability to write coming only later and through specific training; 
the spoken language is used in a wider and differentiated range of 
uses and functions; writing originated as a representation of speech. 
According to Ferdinand de Saussure [17], in fact, «a language and its 
written form constitute two separate systems of signs. The sole reason 
for the existence of the latter is to represent the former». In this 
semiotic perspective, it is worth considering that even in writing, as 
in the analysis of the linguistic system, it is necessary to 
distinguish the concrete level of the personal execution (i.e. the 
real act of tracing signs on a surface) from the abstract level which 
all the single occurrences must be took back to, on the basis of a 
sameness principle (e.g. the identification of an “A”, independently 
from the peculiar shape somebody gives to it).

This, as it is easy to understand, marks a decisive difference with 
the marks, in which the linguistic aspect is decidedly less marked, 
even in the presence of monograms and other similar symbols (which 
remain symbols without phonetic value, although using signs usually 
devoted to representation of sounds).

I hope this helps. However, we are convinced that a thorough revision 
of classes E34 and d E37 is absolutely necessary. Could this be a 
topic of discussion at the next SIG?

Bests,
Achille


Il giorno 20 gen 2020, alle ore 00:31, Ethan Gruber 
<ewg4x...@gmail.com <mailto:ewg4x...@gmail.com>> ha scritto:

A short text on a physical object is always an inscription. Whether 
or not it's a mark (according to the current definition in the 
ontology) probably depends on a greater level of specialized knowledge.

On Sun, Jan 19, 2020, 6:04 PM Robert Sanderson <rsander...@getty.edu 
<mailto:rsander...@getty.edu>> wrote:

    From a practical perspective, when modeling a short text that’s
    on a physical object … how can I know when that should be a
    Mark+Linguistic Object, or when it is an Inscription?

    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: *Saturday, January 18, 2020 at 12:32 PM
    *To: *"crm-sig@ics.forth.gr <mailto:crm-sig@ics.forth.gr>"
    <crm-sig@ics.forth.gr <mailto:crm-sig@ics.forth.gr>>
    *Subject: *Re: [Crm-sig] ISSUE: Scope note of E37 Mark

    I understand the following:

    This means, that there cannot be Linguistic Objects among the
    marks that are not inscriptions.

    This violates the Open World assumptions. We know that
    Inscriptions are also Linguistic Objects, but that does NOT imply
    that there may be other Linguistic Objects among the Marks.

    It is most probably the case, but we neither know for sure, nor
    make such statements in the CRM.

    I also do not see a particular utility in this statement.

    All other rules A-D provided by Robert  appear to be correct.

    Best,

    Martin

    On 1/18/2020 6:27 PM, Christian-Emil Smith Ore wrote:

        E37 Mark             E33 Linguistic Object

        |                                   /

        E34 Inscription

        ​​E) No Marks which are not also Inscriptions are Linguistic
        Objects

        The sentence is difficult to understand.  I try.

        Pr defintion:

        All (instances of E37) marks which are (instances of E34)
        Inscriptions are (instances of E33) Linguistic Objects.

        The only difference between E34 Inscription and E37 Mark is
        that E34 is a restriction of E37 Mark to those which also are
         instances of  E33 Lingustic Object that is has a language. 
        Most sequences of letters and signs do not have a language.

        C-E

        *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>
        *Sent:* 18 January 2020 13:59
        *To:* crm-sig@ics.forth.gr <mailto:crm-sig@ics.forth.gr>
        *Subject:* Re: [Crm-sig] ISSUE: Scope note of E37 Mark

        I also disagree with E, but letters and combinations should
        not be regarded Linguistic Objects. They do not have a
        particular language, translation etc. No need to make them
        linguistic objects.

        Best,

        Martin

        On 1/18/2020 1:53 PM, Øyvind Eide wrote:

            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

                                

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                    ------------------------------------

                    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

                        

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        ------------------------------------

        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



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      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

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--
------------------------------------
 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
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