SKOS-example.org

SKOS taxonomy from Org outline using ELOT

elot-skos-example

This example shows how an ordinary Org outline of individuals becomes a SKOS taxonomy on export. The concept hierarchy is expressed purely by nesting subheadings under the Individuals section, and a single drawer property — set with

:ELOT-subheading-relation: skos:broader

— instructs ELOT to assert skos:broader from every nested concept to its immediate parent, at any depth. You therefore never write the skos:broader links by hand: the outline is their single source of truth. See the Individuals section for the details.

Prefixes

The ontology document in OWL employs the namespace prefixes of table prefix-table.

prefix	uri
ex:	http://example.org/
owl:	http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#
rdf:	http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
rdfs:	http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#
skos:	http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#
xml:	http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace
xsd:	http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#

elot-skos-example ontology (http://example.org/ontology/elot-skos-example)

Import

http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core

rdfs:label

Example: ELOT individuals outline into SKOS taxonomy

Datatypes

Classes

“Concept Scheme”@en (skos:ConceptScheme)

“Concept”@en (skos:Concept)

Object properties

“has broader”@en (skos:broader)

“has related”@en (skos:related)

“has top concept”@en (skos:hasTopConcept)

“is in scheme”@en (skos:inScheme)

Data properties

“notation”@en (skos:notation)

Annotation properties

“alternative label”@en (skos:altLabel)

“definition”@en (skos:definition)

“preferred label”@en (skos:prefLabel)

rdfs:label

Individuals

The individuals below form a small SKOS concept scheme. Two mechanisms build its taxonomy:

1. Outline nesting. Concepts are nested as subheadings, so Dog sits under Mammal, which sits under Animal.
2. The =:ELOT-subheading-relation:= property. Setting

   :ELOT-subheading-relation: skos:broader 
       

   on the Concept wrapper heading makes ELOT emit, on export, a description-list axiom

   Facts: skos:broader <immediate-parent>
       

   for every concept nested beneath it. The relation is inherited to any depth, and each concept always points at its immediate parent — so Mammal gets skos:broader ex:Animal, Dog gets skos:broader ex:Mammal (not ex:Animal), and Pet gets skos:broader ex:Animal. The container Concept heading is tagged :nodeclare: (it only groups its children) and gets no skos:broader of its own; likewise Animal, as the top concept, has no parent to point at.

Because the outline is the single source of truth for skos:broader, those links are not written out below — only facts that cannot be derived from the nesting appear explicitly: labels, definitions, skos:inScheme, the scheme’s skos:hasTopConcept, and one hand-authored skos:related on Pet (which coexists with Pet’s automatically generated skos:broader ex:Animal). To use a different relation for a given subtree — say skos:narrower or skos:related — set that value in the subtree’s own :ELOT-subheading-relation: drawer; it overrides the inherited relation from that point downward.

The “Concept Scheme” wrapper below carries no relation property, so its member individual (ex:AnimalsScheme) is deliberately kept out of the skos:broader hierarchy.

“Concept Scheme”@en

“Animal Taxonomy Concept Scheme”@en (ex:AnimalsScheme)

skos:definition

“A controlled vocabulary for animal concepts.”@en

skos:prefLabel

“Animal Taxonomy Concept Scheme”@en

Types

skos:ConceptScheme

Facts

skos:hasTopConcept ex:Animal

“Concept”@en

“Animal”@en (ex:Animal)

skos:altLabel

“Creature”@en

skos:definition

“A living organism that feeds on organic matter.”@en

skos:prefLabel

“Animal”@en

Types

skos:Concept

Facts

skos:inScheme ex:AnimalsScheme

“Mammal”@en (ex:Mammal)

skos:definition

“Warm-blooded vertebrate animals.”@en

skos:prefLabel

“Mammal”@en

Types

skos:Concept

Facts

skos:inScheme ex:AnimalsScheme

“Dog”@en (ex:Dog)

skos:altLabel

“Canine”@en

skos:prefLabel

“Dog”@en

Types

skos:Concept

Facts

skos:inScheme ex:AnimalsScheme

Facts

skos:notation “CAN-001”

“Pet”@en (ex:Pet)

skos:prefLabel

“Pet”@en

Types

skos:Concept

Facts

skos:inScheme ex:AnimalsScheme

Facts

skos:related ex:Dog