Towards a language for indicating relationships among taxonomic concepts
Franz, Nico M.1 (presenter) & Peet, Robert K.2
1National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, 735 State Street, Suite 300, Santa Barbara, CA 93101, U.S.A., franz@nceas.uscb.edu
2Department of Biology, CB#3280, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3280, U.S.A., peet@unc.eduBased upon previous efforts by taxonomists and database developers, a new language is proposed to express the relationships among taxonomic concepts. The system employs a limited set of symbols adopted from set theory. Accordingly, the referential extensions of two concepts may be congruent (= =), more or less inclusive of each other (> or <), overlapping (><), exclusive (!), or ambiguous (?). The system offers experts the choice to specify the meaning of a concept only in reference to its constituents (ostensively, abbreviated with "ost.") or its properties (intensionally, "int."), to combine the two ways of defining ("int./ost."), or to ignore the distinction (i.e. to "somehow" conceive its extension, "ext."). One may also indicate whether there is any continuity ("con.") in the evidential support provided for succeeding concepts. We discuss how adopting this language would affect the future of a largely internet-based taxonomy.