University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

The Semantics of Active/Passive Annotations: Informing as an Example

Das, Puranjani; Renear, Allen

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/132987

Description

Title
The Semantics of Active/Passive Annotations: Informing as an Example
Author(s)
  • Das, Puranjani
  • Renear, Allen
Issue Date
2026-03-12
Keyword(s)
  • Speech act theory
  • Inverse properties
  • Meaning
  • Semantics
  • Pragmatics
  • Voice
  • Informs
Abstract
Formal terminologies for ontologies and conceptual models sometimes include pairs of expressions that are understood as inverse properties: two relational predicates that mean the same thing, when their arguments in opposite order. One example is active/passive variants with the same lexical root. However, the common assumption that such pairs are equivalent in meaning is challenged by functional and discourse analyses, and by recent work in linguistics that is blurring the distinction between semantics and pragmatics. This has consequences for the reliability and trustworthiness of common practices in model documentation. As an example, we consider active/passive variants of informs, a concept important in modelling information transfer and in information science generally. Our discussion suggests that care should be taken when treating even active and passive variants as equivalent expressions.
Publisher
iSchools
Series/Report Name or Number
iConference 2026 Proceedings
Type of Resource
Other
Genre of Resource
Conference Poster
Language
eng
Permalink
https://hdl.handle.net/2142/132987
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2026 is held by Puranjani Das and Allen Renear. Copyright permissions, when appropriate, must be obtained directly from the authors.

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Posters presented at the 2026 iConference https://www.ischools.org/iconference