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How can I write an RDF serialization enabling me to express the fact that the United States Declaration Of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Jefferson was a male? (And thus asserting that the Declaration of Independence was written by a male.)

Suppose I have the following assertion:

  <rdf:RDF
    xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
    xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" >

    <!-- the Declaration Of Independence was authored by Thomas Jefferson -->
    <rdf:Description
    rdf:about="http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html">
          <dc:creator>http://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n79-89957</dc:creator>
    </rdf:Description>

  </rdf:RDF>

Suppose I have a second assertion:

  <rdf:RDF
    xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
    xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/">

    <!-- Thomas Jefferson was a male -->
    <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n79-89957">
      <foaf:gender>male</foaf:gender>
    </rdf:Description>

  </rdf:RDF>

Now suppose a cool Linked Data robot came along and harvested my RDF/XML. Moreover lets assume the robot could make the logical conclusion that the Declaration was written by a male. How might the robot express this fact in RDF/XML? The following is my first attempt at such an expression, but the resulting graph (attached) doesn't seem to visually express what I really want:

<rdf:RDF
  xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#”
  xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/“
  xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/“>

  <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n79-89957">
    <foaf:gender>male</foaf:gender>
  </rdf:Description>

  <rdf:Description
  rdf:about="http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html">
    <dc:creator>http://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n79-89957</dc:creator>
  </rdf:Description>
</rdf:RDF>

Am I doing something wrong? How might you encode such the following expression — The Declaration Of Independence was authored by Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Jefferson was a male. And therefore, the Declaration Of Independence was authored by a male named Thomas Jefferson? Maybe RDF can not express this fact because it requires two predicates in a single expression, and this the expression would not be a triple but rather a “quadrile" — object, predicate #1, subject/object, predicate #2, and subject?


—
Eric Morgan

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