OWL: property restriction based on values: is it possible at all? - semantic-web

Question

I look for a clearly OWL solution to define a property that is a restriction of another property, similar to an equivalent class. Restriction is based on data properties of either the domain or the range. The restricted property is definitely a subproperty, and, must be inferred.
"kid","mother","father" are Person s
father.gender = "male" data property
mother.gender = "female"
(a Male subclassOf Person = equivalent class "gender value "male")
father parentOf child ' object relation
mother parentOf child ' object relation
How to defined fatherOf property, based on parentOf and gender of father?
Clearly it is a subproperty of parentOf.
However, equivalent object property editor in Protégé does not allow setting a property query, even I do not really see if this can be solved with a property chain.
Defining fatherOf as subproperty and (manually) setting fatherOf instead of parentOf is not an option, since this family example is an oversimplified situation of a more complex scenario.
<Declaration>
<Class IRI="#Person"/>
</Declaration>
<Declaration>
<ObjectProperty IRI="#fatherOf"/>
</Declaration>
<Declaration>
<ObjectProperty IRI="#parentOf"/>
</Declaration>
<Declaration>
<DataProperty IRI="#gender"/>
</Declaration>
<Declaration>
<NamedIndividual IRI="#father"/>
</Declaration>
<Declaration>
<NamedIndividual IRI="#kid"/>
</Declaration>
<Declaration>
<NamedIndividual IRI="#mother"/>
</Declaration>
<ClassAssertion>
<Class IRI="#Person"/>
<NamedIndividual IRI="#father"/>
</ClassAssertion>
<ClassAssertion>
<Class IRI="#Person"/>
<NamedIndividual IRI="#kid"/>
</ClassAssertion>
<ClassAssertion>
<Class IRI="#Person"/>
<NamedIndividual IRI="#mother"/>
</ClassAssertion>
<ObjectPropertyAssertion>
<ObjectProperty IRI="#parentOf"/>
<NamedIndividual IRI="#father"/>
<NamedIndividual IRI="#kid"/>
</ObjectPropertyAssertion>
<ObjectPropertyAssertion>
<ObjectProperty IRI="#parentOf"/>
<NamedIndividual IRI="#mother"/>
<NamedIndividual IRI="#kid"/>
</ObjectPropertyAssertion>
<DataPropertyAssertion>
<DataProperty IRI="#gender"/>
<NamedIndividual IRI="#father"/>
<Literal datatypeIRI="&rdf;PlainLiteral">male</Literal>
</DataPropertyAssertion>
<DataPropertyAssertion>
<DataProperty IRI="#gender"/>
<NamedIndividual IRI="#mother"/>
<Literal datatypeIRI="&rdf;PlainLiteral">female</Literal>
</DataPropertyAssertion>
<SubObjectPropertyOf>
<ObjectProperty IRI="#fatherOf"/>
<ObjectProperty IRI="#parentOf"/>
</SubObjectPropertyOf>
<DataPropertyDomain>
<DataProperty IRI="#gender"/>
<Class IRI="#Person"/>
</DataPropertyDomain>
<DataPropertyRange>
<DataProperty IRI="#gender"/>
<Datatype abbreviatedIRI="xsd:string"/>
</DataPropertyRange>

Answer 1

So, you have something like the following in your data:
:x :parentOf :y .
:x :gender "male" .
and you would like to infer that:
:x :fatherOf :y .
I'm afraid you cannot do this in OWL. For cases like this one, you may want to rely on a rule language like SWRL, SPIN, etc. However, for the particular case of father, mother, etc, you could do the following:
define :hasParent as the inverse of :parentOf;
restrict the cardinality of :hasParent to 2;
define :hasFather as the inverse of :fatherOf;
make :hasFather a owl:FunctionalProperty;
define :hasMother as the inverse of :motherOf;
make :hasMother a owl:FunctionalProperty;
define the class :Man of male people;
define the class :Woman of female people;
make :Man disjointWith :Woman;
set the range of :hasFather to :Man;
set the range of :hasMother to :Woman.
So the ontology looks like this (in Turtle because I'm not familiar with OWL/XML):
:Person a owl:Class;
rdfs:subClassOf [
a owl:Restriction;
owl:onProperty :hasParent;
owl:cardinality 2
] .
:Man a owl:Class;
owl:equivalentclass [
a owl:Class;
owl:intersectionOf (
:Person
[
a owl:Restriction;
owl:onProperty :gender;
owl:hasValue "male";
]
)
] .
:Woman a owl:Class;
owl:equivalentclass [
a owl:Class;
owl:intersectionOf (
:Person
[
a owl:Restriction;
owl:onProperty :gender;
owl:hasValue "female";
]
)
] .
:gender a owl:DatatypeProperty, owl:FunctionalProperty .
:hasParent a owl:ObjectProperty;
owl:inverseOf :parentOf;
rdfs:domain :Person;
rdfs:range :Person .
:hasFather a owl:ObjectProperty, owl:FunctionalProperty;
rdfs:subPropertyOf :hasParent;
rdfs:range :Man .
:hasMother a owl:ObjectProperty, owl:FunctionalProperty;
rdfs:subPropertyOf :hasParent;
rdfs:range :Woman .
This should do the trick, but it's a very complicated ontology and reasoning with it may be very slow.
Edit: I added that :gender must be functional, otherwise there could be a mother who is at the same time a father and that would not work!