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Glossarist Concept model
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Disambiguating information on designations #22

Closed opoudjis closed 3 years ago

opoudjis commented 3 years ago

Disambiguating information on designations is not currently captured in the concept model, and is clearly required in iev-document.

The reason for this is a confusion between ISO 10241-1:2011 and IEC/ISO DIR SUP IEC:2016.

ISO 10241-1:2011 defines domain, as subject matter. It never explicitly defines usage information, but it repeatedly gives illustrations of it. From 4.1.2d, 4.4.3.2.2, 5.3, 6.2.3, and A.1.3.2.4, "usage information" can be any of:

grammarInfo, pronunciation, language, script, geographicArea

It is also very clear that these attributes are attributes of designations, not concepts.

Exceptionally, 4.1.2d allows that usage-specific information can also include domain, which is currently only a concept attribute. It is explicitly spoken of as a designation attribute anyway, and one could argue that it is inherited from the concept.

4.4.3.2.2 allows "other secondary data categories defined in the ISO Data Category Registry (DCR) on the basis of ISO 12620".

In 3.4.1.1.3, usage information is appealed to to disambiguate symbols. That does not say what usage information is, but it again makes it an attribute of a designation.


ISO 10241-1 states that IEC uses usage information in relation to a term's specific use, and that that usage information is not restricted to domain: 3.3.1 Note 4, 4.4.3.2.2 Note 3.

That's not inconsistent with ISO-10241-1 at all: usage information in that spec is a union of domain (of designation), grammarInfo, pronunciation, language, script, geographicArea.


The version of ISO/IEC DIR SUP IEC cited in ISO-10241-1:2011 is not online. Its successor https://www.iec.ch/members_experts/refdocs/iec/isoiecdir-iecsup%7Bed10.0%7Den.pdf is.

SK.3.1.3.5.5 Field of application of a term In some cases, it is desirable to specify or restrict the use or field of application of a term or synonym. This may be achieved by specifying a “specific use”. Specific use shall be used only where it is essential for a term or synonym in a given language (e.g. to distinguish homographs) and is not always needed for all terms and synonyms, or for all languages, in a given entry. So that to any user it is clear that the specific use is not part of the term, it is enclosed in angle brackets “<>” and is separated from the term by a comma. The specific use precedes any other term attributes.

NOTE In the IEV, “specific use” is used, when necessary for a given term or synonym, in place of the element “domain” specified in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2, 2011, D.4.5

And the illustration is:

102-05-28 Laplacian, <of a scalar field>

The thing in the the angle brackets in IEV, ISO/IEC DIR SUP IEC is explicitly saying, is a domain. ISO-10241-1:2011 is saying that earlier on, IEV allowed a more general category than domain; it didn't say what that was, but the ISO-10241-1 definition of what it could be is clear.

What is in the angle brackets is the domain of the designation, which IN THEORY is inherited from the concept. In practice, it cannot be: the domain of the designation is optional disambiguating text, and is language-specific. Multiple designations under the same concept can be in different languages, so they do not share the same common domain as language-specific text. Particularly when that text is supplied for some designations and not for others.

So IEC 161-02-19 has

The French "<of a harmonic>" is not a concept domain, inherited fromt the root. It is a disambiguation specific to French, and not inherited into English.


What is to be done:

opoudjis commented 3 years ago

@skalee Note, this impacts you.