OWL Formal Semantics 179
5.2.2 SROIQ Semantics via Predicate Logic
We now briefly present an alternative perspective on the semantics of OWL,
namely by translating SROIQ knowledge bases into first-order predicate
logic. This perspective serves two purposes:
• it shows that the formal semantics of OWL is based on the long-standing
tradition of mathematical logic, and
• it helps to convey the semantics of OWL to those readers who already
have some background in formal logic.
More precisely, the translation is into first-order predicate logic with equal-
ity, which is a mild generalization of first-order predicate logic with an equality
predicate = and with the unary > and ⊥ predicates, with the obvious mean-
ing and formal semantics. Every SROIQ knowledge