Removing unwanted superclass answers in SPARQL - sparql

Question

I have an OWL file that includes a taxonomic hierarchy that I want to write a query where the answer includes each individual and its immediate taxonomic parent. Here's an example (the full query is rather messier).
#prefix rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .
#prefix rdf: <http:://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#> .
#prefix : <urn:ex:> .
:fido rdf:type :Dog .
:Dog rdfs:subClassOf :Mammal .
:Mammal rdfs:subClassOf :Vertebrate .
:Vertebrate rdfs:subClassOf :Animal .
:fido :hasToy :bone
:kitty rdf:type :Cat .
:Cat rdfs:subClassOf :Mammal .
:kitty :hasToy :catnipMouse .
And this query does what I want.
prefix rdf: <http:://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#> .
prefix : <urn:ex:> .
SELECT ?individual ?type
WHERE {
?individual :hasToy :bone .
?individual rdf:type ?type .
}
The problem is that I'd rather use a reasoned-over version of the OWL file, which unsurprisingly includes additional statements:
:fido rdf:type :Mammal .
:fido rdf:type :Vertebrate .
:fido rdf:type :Animal .
:kitty rdf:type :Mammal .
:kitty rdf:type :Vertebrate .
:kitty rdf:type :Animal .
And now the query results in additional answers about Fido being a Mammal, etc. I could just give up on using the reasoned version of the file, or, since the SPARQL queries are called from java, I could do a bunch of additional queries to find the least inclusive type that appears. My question is whether there is a reasonable pure SPARQL solution to only returning the Dog solution.

Answer 1

A generic solution is that you make sure you ask for the direct type only. A class C is the direct type of an instance X if:
X is of type C
there is no C' such that:
X is of type C'
C' is a subclass of C
C' is not equal to C
(that last condition is necessary, by the way, because in RDF/OWL, the subclass-relation is reflexive: every class is a subclass of itself)
In SPARQL, this becomes something like this:
PREFIX rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#>
PREFIX : <urn:ex:> .
SELECT ?individual ?type
WHERE {
?individual :hasToy :bone .
?individual a ?type .
FILTER NOT EXISTS { ?individual a ?other .
?other rdfs:subClassOf ?type .
FILTER(?other != ?type)
}
}
Depending on which API/triplestore/library you use to execute these queries, there may also be other, tool-specific solutions. For example, the Sesame API (disclosure: I am on the Sesame dev team) has the option to disable reasoning for the purpose of a single query:
TupleQuery query = conn.prepareTupleQuery(SPARQL, "SELECT ...");
query.setIncludeInferred(false);
TupleQueryResult result = query.evaluate();
Sesame also offers an optional additional inferencer (called the 'direct type inferencer') which introduces additional 'virtual' properties you can query, such as sesame:directType, sesame:directSubClassOf, etc. Other tools will undoubtedly have similar options.