The specification below describes the vocabularies used in the project Talk of Europe, defined as dictionaries of named properties and classes using W3C's RDF technology.


CLASSES

PROPERTIES

Classes

Class: polivoc_eu: AgendaItem

AgendaItem - A unit in a session day (debate, vote, etc.), as indicated in the official agenda of the EU plenary sittings.
Status: stable
Properties include: date title ID hasPart isPartOf hasSubsequent
Used with: isPartOf hasPart
Has Subclass

The AgendaItem class is the class that represents individual agenda items, which can be, for instance, a debate, vote, question, statement, or administrative activity.

Class: polivoc_eu: CountryOfRepresentation

CountryOfRepresentation - The country represented by a politician.
Status: stable
Properties include: label acronym
Used with: countryOfRepresentation
Has Subclass

The CountryOfRepresentation class is the class that represents the countries represented in the European Union.

Class: polivoc_eu: EUCommittee

EUCommittee - A Committee in European Parliament.
Status: stable
Properties include: label acronym
Used with: institution
Has Subclass

The EUCommittee class is the class that represents the Committees of the European Parliament, domain-specific groupings that do preparatory work for Parliament’s plenary sittings.

Class: polivoc_eu: EUParty

EUParty - A political group in European Parliament.
Status: stable
Properties include: label
Used with: institution
Has Subclass

The EUParty class is the class that represents the political groups that exist in European Parliament.

Class: polivoc_eu: NationalParty

NationalParty - A political party operating on the level of national parliaments.
Status: stable
Properties include: label
Used with: institution
Has Subclass

The NationalParty class is the class that represents the parties the speakers in Parliament are affiliated with in the national parliament of their country of representation.

Class: polivoc_eu: PoliticalFunction

PoliticalFunction - A member of Parliament's political affiliation, defined as a role in a political institution for a given time period
Status: stable
Properties include: date hasBeginning hasEnd role institution
Used with: politicalFunction

Has Subclass

The PoliticalFunction class is the class that represents MEP's (current and past) political affilations, each of which comprises a role (e.g., member, chair) in a political body, either in the EU (party, delegation, committee) or on a national level (party), for a certain timeframe (i.e., between two dates).

Class: polivoc_eu: PoliticalInstitution

PoliticalInstitution - A political institution.
Status: stable
Properties include: label
Used with: institution
Has Subclass: NationalParty EUParty EUCommittee

The PoliticalInstitution class is the class that represents the political bodies the speakers in Parliament are affiliated with, at the national or at the EU level.

Class: polivoc_eu: Role

Role - A politician's hierarchical or functional position in a political institution.
Status: stable
Properties include: label
Used with: role
Has Subclass

The Role class is the class that represents the name of the hierarchical or functional position of a person in a political institution: e.g., member, chair, president.

Class: polivoc_eu: SessionDay

SessionDay - A day of plenary activity.
Status: stable
Properties include: hasPart isPartOf hasSubsequent date
Used with: isPartOf hasPart
Has Subclass

The SessionDay class is the class that represents one calendar day of plenary activities. A session day is part of a session; a session is held each month (except during summer break) and has two or four consecutive sessiondays.

Class: polivoc_eu: Session

Session - The monthly series of plenary activity, consisting of two or four consecutive session days.
Status: stable
Properties include: date hasPart
Used with: isPartOf
Has Subclass:

The Session class is the class that represents the monthly activities of plenary activities, which are held throughout the year except in summer break and comprise two or four consecutive days. This is the highest-level structural element in the Talk of Europe dataset.

Class: polivoc_eu: Speaker

Speaker - A person giving a speech in the plenary session.
Status: stable
Properties include: dateOfBirth givenname familyname countryOfRepresentation politicalFunction
Used with: speaker

Has Subclass

The Speaker class is the class that represents the speakers in parliament. If the speaker is a member of parliament, he/she has a MEP_ID.

Class: polivoc_eu: Speaker

Speaker - A person giving a speech in the plenary session
Status: stable
Properties include: dateOfBirth givenname familyname countryOfRepresentation politicalFunction
Used with: speaker

Has Subclass

The Speaker class is the class that represents the speakers in parliament. If the speaker is a member of parliament, he/she has a MEP_ID.

Class: polivoc_eu: Speech

Speech - Any continuous (i.e., uninterrupted) sequence of words spoken by a single speaker.
Status: stable
Properties include: spokenText translatedText language hasSubsequent isPartOf speaker ID
Used with: hasPart

Has Subclass

The Speech class is the class that represents the smallest unit of the plenary debates. A speech always has a single speaker.


Properties


Property: lp:acronym

acronym A letter-word type abbreviation.

The acronym property relates a CountryOfRepresentation instance, a EUCommittee instance, or a EUParty instance, to a literal string value.

The acronym relationship denotes an official letter-word type abbreviated name of an institution. For countries, this is the ISO-code; for EU committees and EU parties, this is the official abbreviation.

The acronym relationship is one-to-one or one-to-none, depending on the availability of the information.


Property: lp:beginning

beginning The start date.

The beginning property relates a PoliticalFunction instance to a literal value of type xsd:date in the format year-month-day (YYYY-MM-DD).

The beginning relationship is one-to-one: each political function, i.e., each role in a political institution, has a defined start date.


Property: lp:countryOfRepresentation

countryOfRepresentation The EU state a member of parliament represents.

The countryOfRepresentation property relates a MemberOfParliament instance to a CountryOfRepresentation instance.

The countryOfRepresentation relationship is strictly one-to-one, since each member of Parliament is a direct representative of a member state of the European Union.

The countries of representation belonging to the members of parliament are taken from an existing database of information from the European Parliament. See: Høyland, B., Sircar, I., & Hix, S. (2009). Forum section: an automated database of the European Parliament. European Union Politics, 10(1), 143-152.


Property: dc:date

date The date on which something takes place.

The date property relates a SessionDay instance and a SgendaItem instance to a literal of type xsd:date.

The date relationship is strictly one-to-one.

The date relationship is taken from the Dublin Core (dc) vocabulary.


Property: lp:dateOfBirth

dateOfBirth The birth date of a member of parliament.

The dateOfBirth property relates a MemberOfParliament instance to a literal of type xsd:date.

The dateOfBirth relationship is strictly one-to-one.

The birth dates of the members of parliament are taken from an existing database of information from the European Parliament. See: Høyland, B., Sircar, I., & Hix, S. (2009). Forum section: an automated database of the European Parliament. European Union Politics, 10(1), 143-152.


Property: lp:end

end The end date.

The end property relates a PoliticalFunction instance to a literal value of type xsd:date in the format year-month-day (YYYY-MM-DD).

The end relationship is one-to-one: each political function, i.e., each role in a political institution, has a defined end date.

Property: lp:end

end The end date.

The end property relates a PoliticalFunction instance to a literal value of type xsd:date.

The end relationship is one-to-one: each political function, i.e., each role in a political institution, has a defined end date.

Property: foaf:familyName

familyName The last name of a member of parliament.

The familyName property relates a MemberOfParliament instance to a literal of type xsd:string. Note that the name of non-MEP speakers, i.e., members of the class Speaker but not MemberOfParliament, is denoted by name for the full name instead, as no information is available about the composition of their names.

The familyName relationship is strictly one-to-one.

The family names of the members of parliament are taken from an existing database of information from the European Parliament. See: Høyland, B., Sircar, I., & Hix, S. (2009). Forum section: an automated database of the European Parliament. European Union Politics, 10(1), 143-152.

The familyName relationship is taken from the foaf vocabulary. See foaf specification (http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/#term_familyName).

Property: foaf:givenName

givenName The first name of a member of parliament.

The givenName property relates a MemberOfParliament instance to a literal of type xsd:string. Note that the name of non-MEP speakers, i.e., members of the class Speaker but not MemberOfParliament, is denoted by name instead for the full name, as no information is available about the composition of their names.

The givenName relationship is strictly one-to-one.

The given names of the members of parliament are taken from an existing database of information from the European Parliament. See: Høyland, B., Sircar, I., & Hix, S. (2009). Forum section: an automated database of the European Parliament. European Union Politics, 10(1), 143-152.

The givenName relationship is taken from the foaf vocabulary. See foaf specification (http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/#term_givenName).

Property: lp:hasPart

hasPart A direct sub-unit unit within a functional unit in Parliament.

The hasPart property relates a Session instance to a SessionDay instance,a SessionDay instance to a AgendaItem instance,a AgendaItem instance to a Speech instance.

The hasPart relationship is usually one-to-many: Session instance generally splits up into two to four SessionDay instances, a SessionDay instance generally has over a dozen AgendaItem instances, and a AgendaItem usually has as its part a few dozens of instances. An exception to this is the votes: AgendaItem instances without speeches are voting sessions.

The hasPart relationship has not been defined a transitive property.

Property: lp:hasSubsequent

hasSubsequent A chronological follow-up item of a similar item in Parliament.

The hasSubsequent property relates a SessionDay instance to a SessionDay instance,a AgendaItem instance to a AgendaItem instance,a Speech instance to a Speech instance.

The hasSubsequent relationship is strictly one-to-one or one-to-none: Session instance generally splits up into two to four SessionDay instances, a SessionDay instance generally has over a dozen AgendaItem instances, and a AgendaItem usually has as its part a few dozens of instances.

The hasSubsequent relationship has not been defined a transitive property.

Property: lp:institution

institution A political institution.

The institution property relates a PoliticalFunction instance to an instance of PoliticalInstitution or to an instance one of the subclasses of , i.e., EUCommittee, EUParty, or NationalParty.

The institution relationship is strictly one-to-one (or one-to-none in case of missing information): a PoliticalFunction instance is always related to a PoliticalInstitution instance.


Property: lp:isPartOf

isPartOf A direct super-unit unit of a functional unit in Parliament.

The isPartOf property relates a SessionDay instance to a Session instance,a AgendaItem instance to a SessionDay> instance,a Speech instance to a AgendaItem instance.

The isPartOf relationship is strictly one-to-one, since each functional unit in Parliament is embedded in the larger structure of parliamentary organisation.

The isPartOf relationship is defined as the inverse property (owl:inverseOf) of the hasPart property. Therefore, no triples exist in the triple store with this property, and to use it requires an inferencing module.

Property: lp:hasSubsequent

hasSubsequent A chronological follow-up item of a similar item in Parliament.

The hasSubsequent property relates a SessionDay instance to a SessionDay instance,a AgendaItem instance to a AgendaItem instance,a Speech instance to a Speech instance.

The hasSubsequent relationship is strictly one-to-one or one-to-none: Session instance generally splits up into two to four SessionDay instances, a SessionDay instance generally has over a dozen AgendaItem instances, and a AgendaItem usually has as its part a few dozens of instances.

The hasSubsequent relationship has not been defined a transitive property.

Property: lp:language

language The language in which a speech was spoken in parliament.

The language property relates a Speech instance to a literal of type xsd:language.

The language relationship is strictly one-to-one.


Property: lp:number

number The chronological order of an instance in the superordinate category of organization.

The number property relates a Speech instance and a AgendaItem instance to a literal of type xsd:integer. The ordering of speeches refers to the AgendaItem they are a part of, the numbering of agenda items applies to the order they appear within the SessionDay.

The number relationship is strictly one-to-one.

Property: lp:politicalFunction

politicalFunction A member of Parliament's political affiliation.

The politicalFunction property relates a MemberOfParliament instance to a PoliticalFunction instance.

politicalFunction relates one MemberOfParliament instance to any number of political functions: zero for non-affiliated members, one or more for members that are related to a EU party, (one or more) EU committees, and/ or national party.

The political functions of the members of parliament are taken from an existing database of information from the European Parliament. See: Høyland, B., Sircar, I., & Hix, S. (2009). Forum section: an automated database of the European Parliament. European Union Politics, 10(1), 143-152.


Property: lp:role

role A politician's hierarchical or functional position in a political institution.

The role property relates a PoliticalFunction instance to a Role instance.

The role relationship is strictly one-to-one (or one-to-none in case of missing information): a PoliticalFunction instance is always related to a Role instance.


Property: lp:speaker

speaker The person giving a speech in the plenary session.

The speaker property relates a Speech instance to a Speaker instance.

The speaker relationship is strictly one-to-one, since a speech is regarded as a speaking turn of one individual. Note that a Speaker instance is not always a MemberOfParliament instance.


Property: lp:spokenAs

spokenAs A political function held by the speaker at the moment of speaking.

The spokenAs property relates a Speech instance to a PoliticalFunction instance.

The spokenAs relationship can have any cardinality. A Speech instance need not have any PoliticalFunction associated with it, since its A Speaker is not necessarily a member of Parliament. In case the speaker is a member of Parliament, his or her speeches generally have one or several associated PoliticalFunction instances, depending whether the speaker is a member of one or no EU parties, one or no national parties, and no, one or multiple committees.

The spokenAs relationship is inferred from the date of the speech and the beginning and end date of the speaker's associated political functions.


Property: lp:spokenText

spokenText The text literally spoken in one speaking turn in Parliament.

The spokenText property relates a Speech instance to a literal value of type string.

This property was derived from the language associated to a speech and the translation with the corresponding language tag.

Property: lp:text

text A translated or spoken version of the text of one speaking turn in Parliament.

The text property relates a Speech instance to a literal value of type string.

Generally, the text relationship is one-to-many: Speech instance in theory has as many literals associated by the text property as there are official languages in the EU.

Property: lp:textURI

textURI The link to the English translation of the agenda and the speech transcripts of one day in Parliament on the EU website.

The textURI property relates a SessionDay instance to a literal of type string.

The textURI relationship is strictly one-to-one, since only English transscript of a day in Parliament is unique.


Property: lp:title

title The description of an item in parliament as listed in the official EU agenda.

The title property relates a AgendaItem instance to a literal of type xsd:string.

The title relationship is strictly one-to-one.

The source of the title is the URI listed as the value of the textURI property.


Property: lp:translatedText

translatedText A translated version of a text spoken in one speaking turn in Parliament.

The translatedText property relates a Speech instance to a literal value of type string.

This property was derived from the language associated to a speech: for all other languages, the text was defined to be translated text.

Property: lp:unclassifiedMetadata

unclassifiedMetadata Additional infomation of various kinds about a speech.

The unclassifiedMetadata property relates a Speech instance to a literal of type string. It contains additional information about a speech: actions taking place such as interruptions and applause, the party on behalf of which the speaker is talking, and, (redundantly), the speaker name.

The unclassifiedMetadata relationship can have any cardinality. Some speeches have no such metadata attached to them, others have several.

The unclassifiedMetadata relationship captures all text written in italics in the online transcripts, the link to which can be found under the textURI property.