Subclass of:

• crm:E2 Temporal Entity

Superclass of:

• sdh:C21 Skill
• sdh:C28 Quantifiable Quality
• sdh:C4 Intention
• sdh:C42 Shape
• sdh:C44 Physical Thing Quality

Scope note:

This class comprises characteristics, qualities or conditions of persistent items or temporal entities at a given moment or during a time-span. This class is inspired by the perspective of DOLCE qualities which are defined as individualized properties that inhere in particulars: a quality therefore inheres in each class instance and ceases to exist at the end of the life of the instance it inheres to. The quality value or quale (DOLCE) is associated to the entity quality and is possibly time-indexed, i.e. valid throughout a given time-span.

A characteristic or quality value of an entity is conceptualized in the SDHSS core extension as a time-indexed phenomenon capturing the fact that at a given moment the quality (DOLCE) of a given entity has a specific value or quale. Instead of modelling the quality as such, the sdh:C1 Entity Quality class models the observable phenomenon of the association of a quality of an entity, e.g. the color, with a specific value, e.g. red. The present class therefore represents the time-indexed association between a quality and its value or quale.

The sdh:C1 Quality class is situated in the taxonomy of classes on the same level as the crm:E3 Condition or State and crm:E4 Period, both child classes of crm:E2 Temporal Entity. Indeed, a careful ontological analysis shows that, strictly speaking, it is the class crm:E4 Period that is equivalent to the Perdurant class in DOLCE and not crm:E2 Temporal Entity because no property of the latter associates it with objects, nor physical space, and it therefore represents only the temporal dimension of phenomena. At the same time, we observe that the crm:E2 class is also a parent of crm:E3 Condition or State class, which appears to be equivalent to the sdh:C1 Quality class, albeit with a restriction to physical objects. The proposed modelling approach thus complies with the DOLCE's conceptualisation in defining the two classes crm:E4 Period (perdurant) and sdh:C1 Quality (quality-quale) as children of the crm:E2 Temporal Entity class. Of course the formalisation of the sdh:C1 class is different from that of DOLCE which expresses the association to a quale using a time-indexed property.

The kind of quality observed (color, weight, etc.) is specified by a suitable quality type or creating subclasses with specific properties. In contrast, no generic property is defined to associate any crm:E1 Entity with a quality. As a matter of fact not all subclasses of the sdh:C1 Entity Quality class concern the same types of entities and one cannot therefore extend an inheritance of a generic has quality property to all subclasses but they have to be considered distinctly. For instance, the crm:E3 Condition State class can be considered as representig a specialization of the sdh:C1 Entity Quality class and the crm:P44 has condition (is condition of) property opportunely associates a physical object with its physical condition or state.

A characteristic or quality is initiated, influenced and ended by events (crm:E5 Event class) and this is modelled by correspondent properties.

This is an abstract class and has no direct instances.

Examples:

• The background color of the painting Lady with an Ermine before it was repainted in another darker color (sdh:C... Qualitative Quality)
• Blaise Cendrars' physical condition from 28 September 1915 to his death (crm:P2 has type "right hand amputated") (crm:E3 Condition State)

In First Order Logic:

• C1(x) ⇒ E2(x)

Outgoing properties:

• sdh:P23 has quality type (is quality type of) → sdh:C20 Entity Quality Type

Incoming properties:

• crm:E5 Event → sdh:P8 effects (result from)
• crm:E5 Event → sdh:P9 ends (is ended by)