RDF Surfaces: Enabling Classical Negation and First-Order Expressivity on the Semantic Web

The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a fundamental technology in the Semantic Web, enabling the representation and interchange of structured data. However, RDF lacks the capability to express negated statements in a generic way. As a result, exchanging negative information on a Web scale is thus far restricted to specific cases and predefined statements. The ability to negate (virtually) any RDF statement allows for a comprehensive way to refute, deny or otherwise invalidate claims on a Web scale. We present RDF Surfaces, an extension of RDF that integrates classic negation, thereby enabling first-order logic expressivity within RDF. RDF Surfaces offers a more general and widely applicable approach than previous attempts at incorporating negation. For RDF Surfaces, we define both an abstract and concrete syntax, along with the formal semantics for first-order logic. We demonstrate practical applications of RDF Surfaces with two use cases drawn from the domains of academic publishing and eHealth. We hope this vision paper attracts new implementers and opens the discussion for its specification as a W3C Community Group report.