Dear all,

as part of teaching preparation I came across a concept being described in a 
way I find confusing in the introduction: strict inheritance

(1) Page 12, def. subclass: "3 the subclass inherits the definition of all of 
the properties declared for its superclass without exceptions (strict 
inheritance), in addition to having none, one or more properties of its own.”

(2) Page 14, def. subproperty: ”the subproperty inherits the definition of all 
of the properties declared for its
superproperty without exceptions (strict inheritance), in addition to having 
none, one or more properties of its own.”

(3) Page 15, def subproperty (ctd.): ”the subproperty inherits the definition 
of all of the properties declared for the other property without exceptions 
(strict inheritance), in addition to having none, one or more properties of its 
own. The definitions of inherited properties have to be interpreted in the 
inverse sense of direction of the subproperty, i.e., from range to domain.”

(4) Page 15–16, def strict inheritance: ”Strict inheritance means that there 
are no exceptions to the inheritance of properties from superclasses to 
subclasses. For instance, some systems may declare that elephants are grey, and 
regard a white elephant as an exception. Under strict inheritance it would hold 
that: if all elephants were grey, then a white elephant could not be an 
elephant. Obviously not all elephants are grey. To be grey is not part of the 
intension of the concept elephant but an optional property. The CIDOC CRM 
applies strict inheritance as a normalization principle.”

I find the example in (4) confusing due to the mix between classes/properties 
and particulars. 

All the best,

Øyvind
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