ABSTRACT
Formal semantics gives a rigorous definition of “meaning” that can be directly related to computational methods of inference. The W3C has defined the syntax and model theoretic semantics of RDF and RDFS, and these semantics are used to define inference rules: An RDFS graph G entails H iff H is true whenever G is. This chapter will provide an intuitive explanation of RDF semantics based on the specifications of the W3C [108]. See appendix C for background on the syntax of RDF. In this chapter, a simplified version of RDF syntax based on Turtle syntax will be used. The QName prefixes rdf, rdfs and xsd are defined in standard fashion, and we will additionally use the name space ex for an imaginary URI used in our examples.
