Quality¶
Local identifier:
xwkont:concept:qualitySlug:qualityEditorial status:reviewedCreated:2026-07-01Modified:2026-07-06
Scope Note¶
This crosswalk compares BFO's Quality (a Specifically Dependent Continuant), DOLCE's Quality/Quale pair, UFO's Moment/Quality, and SUMO's Attribute, as Object's sibling under Continuant in data/ontology/core.ttl.
This crosswalk surfaces the sharpest metaphysical divergence found across all crosswalks so far, not just a labeling difference. BFO, DOLCE, and UFO all treat a quality as a particular (a "trope" in the philosophical-literature sense) that existentially depends on a specific bearer — the redness of this apple is its own particular entity, distinct from the redness of any other apple, even though both are the same type of quality. SUMO breaks with this entirely: its analog, Attribute, is classified as an abstract entity, not a particular dependent on a bearer. This is a genuine fork between trope-theoretic and abstracta-based treatments of properties, not merely a different word for the same thing. SUMO also does not use the word "Quality" at all for this category — its term is Attribute.
DOLCE and UFO additionally share a further layer BFO doesn't appear to formalize the same way: both distinguish the particular quality/moment itself from its value or position within a conceptual space (DOLCE: quale; UFO: measurement via a "value space" for the subtype of Moment it calls Quality). This parallel is noted but not confirmed as a shared theoretical source (e.g., Gärdenfors' conceptual spaces) — see Uncertainty.
Exclusions: this crosswalk does not address Role (Object's other sibling under Continuant, planned next) and does not attempt UFO's full Moment typology (intrinsic vs. relational, further subtypes) beyond what's needed to place Quality within it.
Update (2026-07-01), following direct primary-source verification of DOLCE's D18 report and UFO's 2021 paper, fully resolving uncertainty-002: both were fetched and read directly (reusing extractions already performed for other crosswalks). Findings:
- DOLCE's own primary text (not just the 2022 restatement) confirms the Quality/Quale definitions closely: "qualities are particulars, properties are universals. Qualities inhere to entities... each quality is specifically constantly dependent on the entity it inheres in." Qualia are "the position of an individual quality within a certain conceptual space (called here quality space)."
- The Gärdenfors/Goodman citation is now confirmed at the exact sentence level, not just via a bibliography key search. D18's own text cites its sources inline: the quality-space notion is footnoted directly to Gärdenfors (2000), Conceptual Spaces: the Geometry of Thought (reference [39]), and "this distinction between qualities and qualia" is footnoted to Goodman (1951), The Structure of Appearance (reference [40]), alongside "the so-called trope theory," citing Campbell (1990), Abstract Particulars (reference [9]).
- UFO independently cites Gärdenfors too, resolving the previously-unconfirmed UFO side of
uncertainty-002: "quality structures... can be either one-dimensional, in which case they are termed quality dimensions, or composed of multiple co-dependent dimensions (see also integral dimensions, Gärdenfors, 2004)." This is a different Gärdenfors publication year (2004, not DOLCE's 2000 citation) but the same conceptual-spaces theory — both sources independently ground their value-space/quality-space apparatus in Gärdenfors' work, not just structurally resembling each other by coincidence.
Epistemic note: BFO, DOLCE, UFO, and SUMO content is all now verified directly against primary sources (bfo-core.ttl, WonderWeb D18, the 2021 Applied Ontology paper, and Merge.kif, respectively).
Update (2026-07-02), ADR-0015 buildout: extended to GFO, YAMATO, TUpper, and GUM. The trope-vs-abstracta fork found between BFO/DOLCE/UFO and SUMO gains two more data points on the trope side and a genuinely new third modeling style: GFO's Property (a Concrete, Dependent individual) and YAMATO's Quality (a "property associated with an individual entity," part of a four-tier Generic-quality-type/Quality-role-type/Quality/Quality-instance apparatus) both join the trope-theoretic camp with BFO/DOLCE/UFO, not SUMO's abstracta camp. More strikingly, GFO's own Value_space class independently cites both Gärdenfors (2000) and DOLCE by name ("Masolo, 2003") for the same value-space/quality-space parallel this crosswalk's note-002 already documents between DOLCE and UFO — a third source citing Gärdenfors, and the first source in this crosswalk to cite another already-covered source by name. YAMATO's own text similarly engages DOLCE's quality-space concept directly, calling it "one of the most sophisticated property ontologies" but arguing it doesn't cover all quality-description patterns it identifies (<E,A>, <E,A,V>, <E,P,V>). TUpper introduces a genuinely different, third modeling style: it does not reify qualities as dependent-particular entities at all — no Quality/Attribute/Property class exists in its fetched files. Instead, physical measurements (mass, volume, physical_length, physical_area, physical_density) are direct OWL object properties relating an object straight to a value, with no intervening trope or abstracta layer. GUM's SimpleQuality ("properties of SimpleThings and Processes... anything that can be expressed as an English adjective") is a genuine entity-level class, terminologically the closest match of the four new sources ("Quality" itself), but grounded in linguistic realization rather than metaphysical inherence — the same terminological-match-without-matching-criterion pattern already found for GUM's Process in process.md.
Labels, Alternate Labels, and Source Terminology¶
| Role | Label or term | Source | Language | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| XwkOnt working label | Quality | XwkOnt | en |
Matches xwkont-core:Quality (rdfs:subClassOf xwkont-core:Continuant) in data/ontology/core.ttl. |
| Alternate label | Quality Space / Quale | XwkOnt | en |
Evaluated 2026-07-06 as a possible standalone 0.3.0-batch concept; confirmed by maintainer (2026-07-06) to be covered by this crosswalk's existing Quale/quality-space material rather than get its own document. Added here specifically so a search for "Quality Space / Quale" finds this concept directly. See Future Work for the full cross-reference and docs/crosswalks/candidate-concepts.md. |
| Source term | Quality (a Specifically Dependent Continuant) | BFO | en |
|
| Source term | Quality (contrasted with its Quale) | DOLCE | en |
|
| Source term | Quality (a subtype of Moment) | UFO | en |
"Moment" is UFO's general term for dependent particulars; "Quality" is the subtype measurable via a value space. |
| Alternate label | Attribute | SUMO | en |
SUMO does not use "Quality"; its analog is an abstract entity, not a particular — see Scope Note. |
| Source term | Property (+ Property value, Value space) | GFO | en |
Trope-theoretic: Property is a Concrete, Dependent individual. |
| Source term | Quality (+ Generic quality type, Quality role type, Quality instance) | YAMATO | en |
A four-tier apparatus; "Quality" is the class term for a property tied to an individual entity. |
| Source term | (none found — direct measurement properties only) | TUpper | en |
No reified Quality/Attribute/Property class; measurements (mass, volume, length, etc.) are direct OWL object properties from object to value. |
| Source term | SimpleQuality | GUM | en |
"Anything that can be expressed as an English adjective"; a genuine entity class, the closest terminological match of the four new sources. |
Source Definitions and Contextual Notes¶
| Source | Term or identifier | Dimension | Claim type | Definition, quotation, or paraphrase | Reference | Locator | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BFO | Quality (BFO_0000019) | technical | direct quotation | "(Elucidation) A quality is a specifically dependent continuant that, in contrast to roles and dispositions, does not require any further process in order to be realized." Examples: "The colour of a tomato; the ambient temperature of this portion of air; the length of the circumference of your waist; the shape of your nose; the shape of your nostril; the mass of this piece of gold." | xwkont:ref:bfo-2020 |
verified: bfo-core.ttl, class BFO_0000019, fetched and read directly 2026-07-01 |
Corrects the earlier paraphrase's framing ("fully manifested whenever they exist") to the primary text's actual contrast criterion ("does not require any further process in order to be realized," vs. roles/dispositions). |
| DOLCE | Quality | technical | direct quotation | "Qualities are particulars, properties are universals. Qualities inhere to entities: every entity (including qualities themselves) comes with certain qualities, which exist as long as the entity exists... each quality is specifically constantly dependent on the entity it inheres in." | xwkont:ref:dolce-wonderweb-d18 |
verified: WonderWeb D18 PDF, manually extracted 2026-07-01 | Confirms the earlier paraphrase closely, now with the primary source's own exact wording. |
| DOLCE | Quale | technical | direct quotation | "To compare qualities of the same kind, e.g., the color of a rose and the color of a book cover, the category of quale is introduced. A quale is the position occupied by an individual quality within a quality space. ... if the rose and the book cover exhibit the same shade of red, their individual colors occupy the same position (quale) in the color space. Hence, the two qualities are distinct but they have the same quale (within the same color space)." | xwkont:ref:dolce-borgo-2022, confirmed against xwkont:ref:dolce-wonderweb-d18 directly |
verified: both the 2022 arXiv preprint and, as of 2026-07-01, D18 itself (manually extracted); D18's own wording is near-identical, describing quale as "the position of an individual quality within a certain conceptual space (called here quality space)" | Confirms and sharpens the earlier paraphrase with the exact rose/book-cover example, now traced to both the current restatement and the 2003 original. |
| UFO | Moment | technical | direct quotation | "[P]articularized properties, i.e., existentially dependent entities [or] moments, these last ones termed aspects, abstract particulars, or variable tropes (Moltmann, 2020). Moments are parasitic entities and can only exist by inhering in other entities. Intrinsic moments are existentially dependent on a single individual." | xwkont:ref:ufo-2021 |
verified: Applied Ontology 2021 PDF, manually extracted 2026-07-01 | Confirms the earlier paraphrase closely; the "Husserl's Momente" etymology was not re-found verbatim in this pass but is not contradicted. |
| UFO | Quality (subtype of intrinsic Moment) | technical | direct quotation | "These include qualities, i.e., reifications of categorical properties such as color, height, weight, electrical charge. Qualities are entities that can be directly projected into certain value spaces. The latter, termed quality structures, are abstract entities delimiting the space of possible values (qualia, singular quale) for qualities of a given quality type." | xwkont:ref:ufo-2021 |
verified: Applied Ontology 2021 PDF, manually extracted 2026-07-01 | Parallels DOLCE's Quality/Quale pair closely enough that UFO uses the identical term "quale" for the value; see Uncertainty — the shared-theory question is now resolved (both sources cite Gärdenfors independently). |
| SUMO | Attribute | technical | direct quotation | "(subclass Attribute Abstract)... (partition Attribute InternalAttribute RelationalAttribute)... Qualities which we cannot or choose not to reify into subclasses of." | xwkont:ref:sumo-niles-pease-2001 |
verified: Merge.kif, documentation Attribute EnglishLanguage, fetched and read directly 2026-07-01 |
Confirms the abstract-entity classification directly (subclass Attribute Abstract) rather than from an inferred secondary summary. This is the sharpest divergence found in any crosswalk so far — see Scope Note. |
| BFO/DOLCE/UFO | trope-theoretic convergence | philosophical | editorial observation | BFO, DOLCE, and UFO all treat qualities/moments as particulars dependent on a specific bearer (tropes in the philosophical-literature sense), a shared metaphysical commitment despite differing formal apparatus (BFO: inherence; DOLCE: quale/region, citing Goodman 1951 and Campbell 1990 by name; UFO: variable tropes, citing Moltmann 2020). SUMO does not share this commitment, per its own Attribute definition. | xwkont:ref:bfo-2020, xwkont:ref:dolce-wonderweb-d18, xwkont:ref:ufo-2021, xwkont:ref:sumo-niles-pease-2001 |
inference across four sources' own stated definitions, not a single cited passage making the comparison explicitly | |
| GFO | Property | technical | direct quotation | Property is rdfs:subClassOf Concrete and Dependent (no separate skos:definition on Property itself; inherited from its declared superclasses — Concrete: "have a relation to time or space"; Dependent, per its owl:equivalentClass restriction, existentially depends on a bearer). owl:disjointWith Relator. |
xwkont:ref:gfo |
verified: modules/gfo-base.owl, class Property, fetched and read directly 2026-07-02 |
A trope-theoretic, dependent-particular treatment, joining BFO/DOLCE/UFO's camp rather than SUMO's abstract-entity camp. |
| GFO | Property value / Value space | technical | direct quotation | Property_value: "The concept of a property value reflects a relationship between the property of x and the same property as exhibited by another entity y" (owl:equivalentClass a restriction on value_of some Property). Value_space: "Property values usually appear in groups which are called value structures, value spaces or measurement systems... The notion of a value structure of a property is similar to a quality dimension in (Gardenfors, 2000). Further, value structures are related to quality spaces in DOLCE (Masolo, 2003). A quality space consists of all 'quales' (our property values) of some 'quality' (our property)." |
xwkont:ref:gfo |
verified: modules/gfo-base.owl, classes Property_value, Value_space, fetched and read directly 2026-07-02 |
GFO's own text independently cites both Gärdenfors (2000) and DOLCE (Masolo, 2003) by name — a third source grounding its value-space apparatus in Gärdenfors' conceptual-spaces theory (per note-002), and the first source in this crosswalk to explicitly cite another already-covered source. |
| YAMATO | Quality apparatus (Generic quality type / Quality role type / Quality / Quality instance) | technical | direct quotation | "A quality must be a certain dependent property possessed by an entity and keeps its identity while its value changes." "Quality: It is a property associated with an individual entity and is a generic name to denote each instance of quality role type: e.g., Johns height, Toms weight... Quality instance: A realization of quality: e.g., Johns height of 160cm long." | xwkont:ref:yamato-mizoguchi-2010 |
verified: YAMATO101216.pdf, "Quality and quantity" section, extracted 2026-07-02 |
A four-tier apparatus distinguishing the generic property type, the context-associated role type, the individual entity-tied quality, and its value-bearing realization — more elaborated than BFO's single Quality class, structurally comparable to DOLCE/UFO's Quality/Quale split but organized differently (role-theoretic rather than positional-in-a-space). |
| YAMATO | Critique of DOLCE's quality-space coverage | philosophical | direct quotation | "One of the most sophisticated property ontologies is found in DOLCE. It specifies value space for each quality type under the name of Quality space(region)... However, there are other ways of quality description such as <patient_1, diarrhea>, <cupper, conductive>, and <rose_1, redness, faint> which seem not to be covered by DOLCEs quality ontology." |
xwkont:ref:yamato-mizoguchi-2010 |
verified: YAMATO101216.pdf, same section, extracted 2026-07-02 |
YAMATO's own text explicitly engages DOLCE's quality-space concept by name and critiques its coverage — a direct, source-authored comparison to a source already cited in this crosswalk, similar in kind to information-artifact.md's YAMATO-critiques-BFO finding. |
| TUpper | (no reified Quality class — direct measurement properties) | technical | non-equivalence | tupper.all.owl defines mass, volume, physical_length, physical_area, physical_density etc. as FunctionalObjectProperty relations directly from an object (or activity occurrence) to a value, with no class representing the quality/property itself as an individual. |
xwkont:ref:tupper-colore |
verified absence (of a reified class): tupper.all.owl, searched directly, 2026-07-02 |
A third modeling style, distinct from both BFO/DOLCE/UFO/GFO/YAMATO's trope-theoretic reification and SUMO's abstract-entity reification: TUpper reifies neither a particular quality nor an abstract attribute, only a direct relation to a value. |
| GUM | SimpleQuality | technical | direct quotation | "Qualities are properties of SimpleThings and Processes. They participate in property ascription relations. Roughly speaking, qualities include anything that can be expressed as an English adjective." rdfs:subClassOf Element; owl:disjointWith SimpleThing. |
xwkont:ref:gum-owl |
verified: GUM-31.owl, class SimpleQuality, fetched and read directly 2026-07-02 |
The only one of the four new sources with a class literally named "Quality" (via its subclass naming, e.g. MaterialWorldQuality, ModalQuality, LogicalQuality) — the strongest terminological match, though grounded in adjectival/linguistic realization rather than metaphysical inherence. |
Source Ontology Correspondences¶
| Correspondence ID | Source ontology | Source term | Source identifier or IRI | Source version | Reference | Inclusion rationale |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
xwkont:correspondence:quality:001 |
BFO | Quality | BFO_0000019 |
BFO 2020 | xwkont:ref:bfo-2020 |
Direct terminological match to XwkOnt's xwkont-core:Quality. |
xwkont:correspondence:quality:002 |
DOLCE | Quality (+ Quale) | http://www.loa-cnr.it/ontologies/DOLCE-Lite.owl#quality, #quale (confirmed directly, 2026-07-01) |
WonderWeb D18, 2003 (directly verified 2026-07-01) | xwkont:ref:dolce-wonderweb-d18, xwkont:ref:dolce-lite-owl |
Direct terminological match; Quale included as an inseparable companion notion. |
xwkont:correspondence:quality:003 |
UFO | Quality (subtype of Moment) | not applicable — UFO's 2021 paper has no IRI scheme of its own; see continuant-occurrent.md's correspondence rows 005/006 for the gUFO caveat |
Applied Ontology, 2021 (directly verified 2026-07-01) | xwkont:ref:ufo-2021 |
Direct terminological match, though nested under the broader Moment category. |
xwkont:correspondence:quality:004 |
SUMO | Attribute | Attribute (SUMO/SUO-KIF has no separate opaque identifier scheme — the term name itself is the identifier) |
2001 (Niles & Pease) plus current SUMO source (not independently confirmed) | xwkont:ref:sumo-niles-pease-2001 |
Included as the structural analog despite the sharp metaphysical divergence (abstract entity, not a particular) and the absence of "Quality" as SUMO's own term. |
xwkont:correspondence:quality:005 |
GFO | Property (+ Property value, Value space) | https://w3id.org/gfo/base/Property, Property_value, Value_space |
GFO 2024-11-18 (directly verified 2026-07-02) | xwkont:ref:gfo |
Trope-theoretic dependent particular, joining BFO/DOLCE/UFO's camp; Value_space independently cites Gärdenfors and DOLCE by name. |
xwkont:correspondence:quality:006 |
YAMATO | Quality (+ Generic quality type, Quality role type, Quality instance) | not applicable — registration-gated OWL/Hozo download not fetched; cited by quotation from the 2010 technical report, not by IRI | 2010 technical report (directly verified 2026-07-02) | xwkont:ref:yamato-mizoguchi-2010 |
A four-tier dependent-particular apparatus, the most elaborated Quality treatment of any source in this crosswalk; explicitly engages DOLCE's quality-space concept by name. |
xwkont:correspondence:quality:007 |
GUM | SimpleQuality | http://www.ontospace.uni-bremen.de/ontology/stable/GUM-3.owl#SimpleQuality |
GUM 3.1 (directly verified 2026-07-02) | xwkont:ref:gum-owl |
Only new source with a class literally named "Quality" (via subclasses); grounded in adjectival/linguistic realization rather than metaphysical inherence. |
No TUpper correspondence is recorded (ADR-0015 buildout, 2026-07-02) — see Source Definitions and Uncertainty; TUpper reifies no Quality/Attribute/Property class at all, only direct measurement relations.
Semantic Comparison Notes¶
| Note ID | Dimension | Claim type | Note | Supporting references | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
note-001 |
philosophical | editorial observation | BFO, DOLCE, and UFO converge on treating qualities as particulars (tropes) existentially dependent on a bearer — a genuine shared metaphysical commitment, not just similar labels. SUMO's Attribute is classified as an abstract entity instead, a real fork between trope-theoretic and abstracta-based treatments of properties. This is the sharpest divergence identified across all crosswalks completed so far (compare object.md's and event.md's labeling mismatches, which were about category boundaries, not this deep a metaphysical split). |
xwkont:ref:bfo-2020, xwkont:ref:dolce-wonderweb-d18, xwkont:ref:ufo-2021, xwkont:ref:sumo-niles-pease-2001 |
high |
note-002 |
technical | ~~editorial observation~~ confirmed 2026-07-01 | DOLCE's Quality/Quale pair and UFO's Quality-as-measurable-Moment both separate a particular property instance from its value/position in a conceptual space, and now confirmed to share a theoretical origin: DOLCE's D18 cites Gärdenfors (2000), Conceptual Spaces: the Geometry of Thought, by name for the quality-space notion, and UFO's 2021 paper independently cites "Gärdenfors, 2004" for "integral dimensions" in its quality-structure apparatus. Different publication years from the same author/theory, cited independently by each source rather than one copying the other. | xwkont:ref:dolce-wonderweb-d18, xwkont:ref:ufo-2021 |
high |
note-003 |
technical | editorial observation | SUMO does not use the word "Quality" for this category at all — its term is Attribute. This is a labeling difference layered on top of the deeper metaphysical divergence in note-001, similar in kind (though not in magnitude) to object.md's UFO/Substantial-Kind and event.md's BFO-SUMO/Event mismatches. |
xwkont:ref:sumo-niles-pease-2001 |
high |
note-004 |
philosophical | editorial observation | The trope-vs-abstracta fork (note-001) gains a third data point on the trope side (GFO's Property, YAMATO's Quality, both Concrete/entity-dependent, particular-denoting) and a genuinely new third modeling style from TUpper, which reifies neither a particular quality nor an abstract attribute — it attaches values to objects via direct OWL properties (mass, length, etc.) with no intervening entity class at all. GUM's SimpleQuality is entity-like (joining the reified camp structurally) but its criterion is linguistic (adjectival realizability), not metaphysical, so it does not cleanly join either the trope or abstracta side on the same grounds as the others. |
xwkont:ref:gfo, xwkont:ref:yamato-mizoguchi-2010, xwkont:ref:tupper-colore, xwkont:ref:gum-owl |
high |
note-005 |
technical | editorial observation | GFO's Value_space class independently cites both Gärdenfors (2000) and DOLCE (Masolo, 2003) by name in its own definition text, extending note-002's finding to a third independent citation of Gärdenfors' conceptual-spaces theory and adding a rare case of one source ontology's own primary text explicitly citing another source already covered in this crosswalk. YAMATO similarly engages DOLCE's quality-space concept directly (by name, though not citing Gärdenfors), calling it "one of the most sophisticated property ontologies" while arguing its coverage is incomplete. |
xwkont:ref:gfo, xwkont:ref:yamato-mizoguchi-2010, xwkont:ref:dolce-wonderweb-d18 |
high |
Mapping Assertions or Candidate Relations¶
| Mapping ID | Subject | Relation category | Object | predicate_id |
mapping_justification |
Status | Confidence | Rationale | Provenance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
xwkont:mapping:quality:001 |
BFO:Quality | close-match |
DOLCE:Quality | skos:closeMatch |
semapv:ManualMappingCuration |
candidate | high | Both are dependent particulars (tropes) inhering in/dependent on a bearer, fully manifested whenever they exist. Not exact-equivalence-candidate because DOLCE additionally formalizes the Quale layer, which BFO's definition (as found in this pass) does not mirror explicitly. |
xwkont:ref:bfo-2020, xwkont:ref:dolce-wonderweb-d18 |
xwkont:mapping:quality:002 |
BFO:Quality | close-match |
UFO:Quality | skos:closeMatch |
semapv:ManualMappingCuration |
candidate | high | Same trope-theoretic convergence as mapping-001; UFO's Quality additionally nests under the broader Moment category and the value-space criterion. | xwkont:ref:bfo-2020, xwkont:ref:ufo-2021 |
xwkont:mapping:quality:003 |
DOLCE:Quality | exact-equivalence-candidate |
UFO:Quality | skos:exactMatch |
semapv:ManualMappingCuration |
candidate | high | Raised 2026-07-01 from medium: both pair a particular property instance with a value/space notion (Quale / value space, UFO even using the identical term "quale") — the closest structural match found in this crosswalk, and now confirmed to share a theoretical origin (note-002): both sources independently cite Gärdenfors' conceptual-spaces theory. |
xwkont:ref:dolce-wonderweb-d18, xwkont:ref:ufo-2021 |
xwkont:mapping:quality:004 |
BFO:Quality | explicit-non-equivalence |
SUMO:Attribute | none | semapv:ManualMappingCuration |
candidate | high | Explicitly not equivalent: BFO's Quality is a particular dependent on a bearer; SUMO's Attribute is an abstract entity. This is a confirmed metaphysical divergence, not an unresolved uncertainty — high confidence in the non-equivalence itself. | xwkont:ref:bfo-2020, xwkont:ref:sumo-niles-pease-2001 |
xwkont:mapping:quality:005 |
DOLCE:Quality | explicit-non-equivalence |
SUMO:Attribute | none | semapv:ManualMappingCuration |
candidate | high | Same rationale as mapping-004. | xwkont:ref:dolce-wonderweb-d18, xwkont:ref:sumo-niles-pease-2001 |
xwkont:mapping:quality:006 |
BFO:Quality | close-match |
GFO:Property | skos:closeMatch |
semapv:ManualMappingCuration |
candidate | high | Same trope-theoretic convergence as mapping-001/mapping-002: both are dependent particulars inhering in/dependent on a bearer, joining the same camp as BFO/DOLCE/UFO rather than SUMO's abstracta. |
xwkont:ref:bfo-2020, xwkont:ref:gfo |
xwkont:mapping:quality:007 |
DOLCE:Quality | close-match |
GFO:Property | skos:closeMatch |
semapv:ManualMappingCuration |
candidate | high | Same trope-theoretic convergence; additionally, GFO's own Value_space explicitly cites DOLCE (Masolo, 2003) by name for the value-space/quality-space parallel (note-005), strengthening this beyond an editorial observation alone. |
xwkont:ref:dolce-wonderweb-d18, xwkont:ref:gfo |
xwkont:mapping:quality:008 |
GFO:Property | explicit-non-equivalence |
SUMO:Attribute | none | semapv:ManualMappingCuration |
candidate | high | Same rationale as mapping-004/mapping-005: GFO's Property is a Concrete, Dependent individual (a particular), while SUMO's Attribute is an abstract entity — the same confirmed metaphysical divergence extended to a fourth source. |
xwkont:ref:gfo, xwkont:ref:sumo-niles-pease-2001 |
xwkont:mapping:quality:009 |
BFO:Quality | close-match |
YAMATO:Quality | skos:closeMatch |
semapv:ManualMappingCuration |
candidate | medium-high | Both are dependent particulars tied to an individual entity ("a certain dependent property possessed by an entity"). medium-high, not high, specifically because YAMATO's own OWL/Hozo files are not fetched (quotation-only citation) — a genuine sourcing-completeness gap, not because of the elaboration difference alone: YAMATO's four-tier apparatus (generic type/role type/quality/instance) is more elaborated than BFO's single Quality class, but that structural fact is confidently known, not itself an open question. |
xwkont:ref:bfo-2020, xwkont:ref:yamato-mizoguchi-2010 |
xwkont:mapping:quality:010 |
DOLCE:Quality | close-match |
YAMATO:Quality | skos:closeMatch |
semapv:ManualMappingCuration |
candidate | high | Structurally the closest pairing among the new sources: both split a particular quality from its value/realization (DOLCE: Quality/Quale; YAMATO: Quality/Quality instance), and YAMATO's own text explicitly engages DOLCE's quality-space concept by name (note-005) rather than this crosswalk drawing the comparison unassisted. YAMATO explicitly argues DOLCE's coverage is incomplete — a disclosed point of disagreement, not a clean equivalence, but a confidently and directly quoted one (YAMATO's own critique), not an open sourcing question, so it does not itself justify a hedged confidence value. |
xwkont:ref:dolce-wonderweb-d18, xwkont:ref:yamato-mizoguchi-2010 |
xwkont:mapping:quality:011 |
xwkont-core:Quality | unknown |
TUpper | none | semapv:ManualMappingCuration |
candidate | low | No TUpper correspondence identified; TUpper reifies no Quality/Attribute/Property class, only direct measurement relations (mass, length, etc.) from object to value — a third modeling style, neither trope nor abstracta (note-004). Recorded explicitly rather than silently omitted, per this crosswalk's established practice for negative findings. |
xwkont:ref:tupper-colore |
xwkont:mapping:quality:012 |
BFO:Quality | close-match |
GUM:SimpleQuality | skos:closeMatch |
semapv:ManualMappingCuration |
candidate | medium | The only new source with a class literally named "Quality" (via subclass naming), but GUM's criterion is linguistic (adjectival realizability) rather than metaphysical inherence — a terminological match without a matching definitional criterion, the same pattern already found for GUM's Process in process.md. |
xwkont:ref:bfo-2020, xwkont:ref:gum-owl |
Uncertainty, Non-Equivalence, and Open Questions¶
| Item ID | Type | Description | Impact | Follow-up |
|---|---|---|---|---|
uncertainty-001 |
~~non-equivalence~~ resolved 2026-07-01 | SUMO's Attribute is classified as an abstract entity (subclass Attribute Abstract), confirmed directly against Merge.kif — not merely inferred from a secondary summary. Recorded as explicit-non-equivalence in mapping-004/mapping-005. |
High confidence in the non-equivalence, now on a verified rather than inferred basis. | Resolved — no further action needed. |
uncertainty-002 |
~~uncertainty~~ fully resolved 2026-07-01 | Confirmed directly on both sides: DOLCE's D18 cites Gärdenfors (2000), Conceptual Spaces: the Geometry of Thought, by name at the exact sentence introducing quality space ("[39]"), plus Goodman (1951) and Campbell (1990) for the quality/quale trope-theoretic distinction. UFO's 2021 paper independently cites "Gärdenfors, 2004" for "integral dimensions" in its own quality-structure apparatus. Both sources ground their value-space/quality-space mechanism in Gärdenfors' conceptual-spaces theory, cited independently rather than one copying the other. | Confidence on mapping-003 raised from medium to high; note-002 raised from medium to high. |
Resolved — no further action needed. |
uncertainty-003 |
~~open-question~~ resolved 2026-07-10 — Role crosswalk reviewed | This crosswalk does not address Role, Object's other sibling under Continuant. | Scopes this crosswalk to Quality only. | Role concept crosswalk is reviewed; no further action on this item. |
uncertainty-004 |
open-question | YAMATO's own OWL/Hozo files were not fetched in this pass (registration-gated download; see xwkont:ref:yamato-mizoguchi-2010), so correspondence-006/mapping-009/mapping-010 are cited by quotation from the 2010 technical report, not by class IRI. |
Confidence on mapping-009/mapping-010 (capped at medium-high) could rise if the OWL is fetched and formal classes matching the Generic-quality-type/Quality-role-type/Quality/Quality-instance apparatus are confirmed. |
Fetch YAMATO's OWL/Hozo files if the registration gate is completed later. |
uncertainty-005 |
open-question | TUpper's fetched files were checked for a reified Quality/Attribute/Property class and none was found, but the search covered tupper.all.owl's object-property declarations, not an exhaustive read of every PSL module TUpper imports (disc_state, psl_actocc, occupy_root, fount) individually. |
The "no reified Quality class" finding rests on the combined tupper.all.owl file, which should already aggregate the imported modules, but this has not been independently spot-checked module-by-module. |
Spot-check the individual PSL modules directly if a future pass wants to rule this out more conclusively. |
Provenance and References¶
xwkont:ref:bfo-2020— Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) 2020 / ISO/IEC 21838-2:2021 — verified directly againstbfo-core.ttl, 2026-07-01xwkont:ref:dolce-wonderweb-d18— WonderWeb Deliverable D18: Ontology Library (Masolo et al., 2003) — verified directly (manual PDF extraction, including the exact Gärdenfors/Goodman/Campbell citation sentences), 2026-07-01xwkont:ref:dolce-lite-owl— DOLCE-Lite OWL translation — verified directly (fetched as plain-text RDF/XML), 2026-07-01; supplies the exactquality/qualeclass IRIsxwkont:ref:dolce-borgo-2022— DOLCE: A Descriptive Ontology for Linguistic and Cognitive Engineering (Borgo et al., 2022) — verified directly (manual PDF extraction), 2026-07-01; used for the Quale definition, now cross-confirmed against D18 itselfxwkont:ref:ufo-2021— UFO: Unified Foundational Ontology (Guizzardi et al., 2021) — verified directly (manual PDF extraction, including its independent Gärdenfors 2004 citation), 2026-07-01xwkont:ref:sumo-niles-pease-2001— Towards a Standard Upper Ontology (Niles & Pease, 2001) — verified directly against current SUMOMerge.kif, 2026-07-01xwkont:ref:gfo— General Formal Ontology (GFO) — verified directly againstmodules/gfo-base.owl(Property,Property_value,Value_space), 2026-07-02xwkont:ref:yamato-mizoguchi-2010— YAMATO 2010 technical report (Mizoguchi) — verified directly (PDF extraction, "Quality and quantity" section), 2026-07-02xwkont:ref:tupper-colore— TUpper COLORE formalization (Grüninger) — verified absence (of a reified Quality class) directly againsttupper.all.owl, 2026-07-02xwkont:ref:gum-owl— GUM 3.1 OWL (Bateman) — verified directly againstGUM-31.owl(SimpleQuality), 2026-07-02
Review History¶
| Review ID | Date | Outcome | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
xwkont:review:quality:2026-07-01:01 |
2026-07-01 | Passed — advanced draft → reviewed |
Checked against docs/governance/contributing.md's Review Checklist: scope preserved; BFO/DOLCE/UFO/SUMO content all verified directly, including the sharpest metaphysical divergence found across all crosswalks (SUMO's Attribute as abstract entity vs. BFO/DOLCE/UFO's trope-theoretic treatment) and a fully resolved shared-theory question (both DOLCE and UFO independently cite Gärdenfors); mapping categories/confidence valid (mapping-003's high confidence now fully earned, not just raised speculatively). No undisclosed gaps found. Self-review, not independent third-party review. |
| — | 2026-07-02 | Not yet reviewed — status reverted reviewed → candidate |
ADR-0015 buildout added GFO/YAMATO/GUM correspondences (005-007), seven new mappings (006-012, including a third independent Gärdenfors-citing source and a fourth trope-vs-abstracta non-equivalence), two new notes (004-005), and two new uncertainty items (004-005). TUpper confirmed to reify no Quality/Attribute/Property class at all — a third modeling style, distinct from both the trope and abstracta camps. GFO's Value_space independently cites both Gärdenfors and DOLCE by name, the first case in this crosswalk of one source's primary text citing another already-covered source. All findings directly verified against already-fetched primary artifacts; no re-fetching needed. Pending maintainer review before advancing back to reviewed. |
xwkont:review:quality:2026-07-02:02 |
2026-07-02 | Passed — advanced candidate → reviewed |
Consolidated review pass, per docs/governance/contributing.md's Review Checklist, of the ADR-0015 buildout content across all 8 concept crosswalks. Checked: scope preserved; every xwkont:ref:* citation resolves; correspondence/mapping/note/uncertainty ID numbering sequential with no gaps or duplicates. Correction (2026-07-06, full-corpus audit): this entry originally claimed "both medium-high mappings here state a sourcing-driven reason" — true for mapping-009 (YAMATO's OWL/Hozo files genuinely unfetched), false for mapping-010, whose rationale described YAMATO's own directly-quoted critique of DOLCE's coverage — a confidently-known disagreement, not a sourcing gap. mapping-010 raised to high confidence in this pass; see docs/methodology/crosswalk-runbook.md's governing principle. Independently re-verified GFO's Value_space definition text against modules/gfo-base.owl and confirmed the Gärdenfors (2000)/DOLCE (Masolo, 2003) citation is exact, not paraphrased or overstated. Self-review performed at the maintainer's explicit request, not independent third-party review. |
Future Work¶
- ~~Read SUMO's current source files directly to confirm Attribute's Physical/Abstract classification~~ — done 2026-07-01,
uncertainty-001resolved. - ~~Read DOLCE's primary papers directly to check the Gärdenfors connection~~ — done 2026-07-01,
uncertainty-002fully resolved: D18 itself cites Gärdenfors (2000)/Goodman (1951)/Campbell (1990) by name, and UFO's 2021 paper independently cites Gärdenfors (2004). - ~~Extend GFO/YAMATO/TUpper/GUM correspondences to this crosswalk~~ — done 2026-07-02 (ADR-0015 buildout, 6 of 8 crosswalks). Pending maintainer review (
uncertainty-004/uncertainty-005remain open). - Fetch YAMATO's OWL/Hozo files if the registration gate is completed (
uncertainty-004); spot-check TUpper's individual PSL modules if a future pass wants to more conclusively rule out a reified Quality class (uncertainty-005). - Update (2026-07-01):
docs/crosswalks/concepts/role.md'snote-001confirmsnote-001above is not an isolated case — SUMO'sSocialRoleis also a subclass ofAttribute, the same abstract-entity treatment found here for Quality.docs/crosswalks/concepts/relation.md'snote-001confirms it a third time — SUMO'sRelationis also a top-level Abstract Entity. This is now a three-concept pattern across SUMO's entire dependent/relational-particular family, not a one-off. Written up as a standalone cross-cutting observation atdocs/methodology/sumo-modeling-patterns.md, which also documents where the pattern does not hold (information-artifact.md'sContentBearingPhysicalgoes the opposite direction). - Cross-reference note (2026-07-06, confirmed by maintainer 2026-07-06): "Quality Space / Quale" was evaluated as a possible standalone
0.3.0-batch concept, distinct from this one. The recommendation from that evaluation (Codex draft + independent primary-source re-verification, perdocs/methodology/crosswalk-runbook.md's "Off-ramp" section) was that it is fully covered by this crosswalk's existingQuale/quality-space material above (DOLCEquale/quality-space, GFOProperty_value/Value_space) and bynote-002's Gärdenfors convergence finding, and does not merit its own document. That was a scoping judgment, not a source-evidence fact alone, so it was routed to the maintainer rather than self-closed — the maintainer has now confirmed it. Added as an Alternate Label above so a direct search for "Quality Space / Quale" finds this concept. Seedocs/crosswalks/candidate-concepts.md's retagged DOLCE/GFO/YAMATO rows for the full trail. This confirmation is revisitable, not permanent, per the runbook's stated revisit condition — if a future source reifies the value-space/quality-space layer as an entity independent of a specific quality, reopen this question.