Continue our discussion on reasoning over the owl:sameAs property (see Case 5), in this section, we show how similar inference can be done through the owl:InverseFunctionalProperty property.

To demonstrate this inference support, we will show how F-OWL can deduce correct conclusions from a set of premises.

This example is based on the animals.owl ontology, and the ontology statements are expressed in N3.

Premises: Eve and MotherOfJohn are two individuals of the class Person. The object property animals:biologicalMotherOf is a type of owl:InverseFunctionalProperty. Both Eve and MotherOfJohn are the subjects of the animals:biologicalMotherOf property, and both of these properties have objects Person John.

animals:Eve a animals:Person.
animals:MotherOfJohn a animals:Person.
animals:biologicalMotherOf a owl:InverseFunctionalProperty.
animals:Eve animals:biologicalMotherOf animals:John.
animals:MotherOfJohn animals:biologicalMotherOf animals:John.

Conclusion: Eve is the same individual as MotherOfJohn.

animals:Eve owl:sameAs animals:MotherOfJohn.

The inference behind the above example is based on the fact animals:biologicalMotherOf is a type of owl:InverseFunctionalProperty, which uniquely identifies the subject value of this object property.

To check if the conclusion can be correctly deduced by F-OWL, the following query can be used:

animals_Eve [owl_sameAs -> animals_MotherOfJohn].