Vocabularies

Some columns in the spreadsheets, and some fields in JSON, take a word from a fixed list rather than free text. This page lists every such word, what it means, and the full identifier it stands for in PLATO. It is generated from the ontology, so it always matches it.

In the spreadsheets, write the word in the Value column exactly as shown, with the same capital letters. The attribution column is the one exception: write Stated or Inferred, and the table definitions add the Attribution prefix. In JSON and RDF, use the full identifier.

The lists are open: if you need a value that is not here, ask for it by opening an issue.

Attribution status

Starter concepts for plato:attribution_status. Whether the attribution of evidence to a cited source was stated or resolved editorially.

Value	Meaning	Full identifier
AttributionInferred	The source was given as ibidem or idem and resolved by an editor, so the attribution is inferred rather than stated.	https://w3id.org/plato#AttributionInferred
AttributionStated	The source is named where the form occurs. The default attribution status, usually omitted.	https://w3id.org/plato#AttributionStated

Form status

Starter concepts for plato:form_status. The status of the name form an attestation contributes.

Value	Meaning	Full identifier
Attested	A form read in the cited source. The default form status, usually omitted.	https://w3id.org/plato#Attested
Headword	The editorial or preferred form under which the cited authority files the entry. A scholarly decision rather than a reading.	https://w3id.org/plato#Headword
Normalised	A form derived from an attested one for matching or search, attested by no source and carrying no independent evidential value.	https://w3id.org/plato#Normalised
Preferred	The form the contributing project prefers for display and search: a project decision, so the cited source may show a different form.	https://w3id.org/plato#Preferred
Reconstructed	A form inferred but not attested; the philologists’ asterisked form.	https://w3id.org/plato#Reconstructed

Geometry role

Starter concepts for plato:geometry_role. What a geometry depicts, as distinct from how precisely it is known.

Value	Meaning	Full identifier
Extent	The built or bounded extent of the SpatialEntity.	https://w3id.org/plato#Extent
FeaturePoint	The location of a specific central feature of the SpatialEntity, such as a market place or a church.	https://w3id.org/plato#FeaturePoint
Itinerary	A line tracing a route or journey.	https://w3id.org/plato#Itinerary
LabelAnchor	The anchor point of a map label.	https://w3id.org/plato#LabelAnchor
RepresentativePoint	A proxy point standing in for the whole SpatialEntity, for indexing and display; it need not depict any feature of it.	https://w3id.org/plato#RepresentativePoint

Meta-attestation type

Starter concepts for plato:has_meta_type. The nature of a meta-attestation’s relationship to its target attestation.

Value	Meaning	Full identifier
AlternativeTo	This attestation and the target are alternative readings of the same evidence: at most one of them is right. Each keeps its own certainty. Link every alternative in a set to the same first one. A set of alternatives is one piece of evidence, not several, so it must be counted once.	https://w3id.org/plato#AlternativeTo
Annotates	Adds a remark about the target attestation, with its own source, without supporting, contradicting or refining it. The remark is the meta-attestation’s notes.	https://w3id.org/plato#Annotates
Bundles	Groups the target with other related attestations.	https://w3id.org/plato#Bundles
Challenges	Questions the validity of the target attestation.	https://w3id.org/plato#Challenges
Contradicts	Asserts that the target attestation is incorrect.	https://w3id.org/plato#Contradicts
DerivedFrom	This attestation’s value was derived from the target attestation’s, as a normalised search form is derived from an attested spelling.	https://w3id.org/plato#DerivedFrom
Refines	Provides more precise information than the target attestation.	https://w3id.org/plato#Refines
Retracts	The target attestation is withdrawn: it no longer holds, and is kept only so that earlier states of the gazetteer can be reproduced. For a claim its maker takes back, such as a bad import, where plato:Contradicts would read as one scholar disputing another. A tool showing the current state leaves a retracted attestation out. A retraction is itself an attestation: retracting it withdraws the withdrawal, and the target holds again.	https://w3id.org/plato#Retracts
Supersedes	Replaces the target attestation with newer information.	https://w3id.org/plato#Supersedes
Supports	Provides additional evidence for the target attestation.	https://w3id.org/plato#Supports

Occurrence context

Starter concepts for plato:occurrence_context. The capacity in which an attested form occurs in its source.

Value	Meaning	Full identifier
Direct	The form refers to the SpatialEntity directly. The default occurrence context, usually omitted.	https://w3id.org/plato#Direct
InFieldName	The form survives only as an element of a later minor name, such as a field name.	https://w3id.org/plato#InFieldName
InPersonalName	The form occurs only as an element of a personal name, a surname or by-name; the (p) of the place-name surveys.	https://w3id.org/plato#InPersonalName

Relative qualifier

Starter concepts for plato:relative_qualifier. How a facet is defined relative to its anchor when bearing and distance are not applicable or not sufficient.

Value	Meaning	Full identifier
BetweenXAndY	Between the anchor and a second anchor.	https://w3id.org/plato#BetweenXAndY
Beyond	On the far side of the anchor from the point of view of the source.	https://w3id.org/plato#Beyond
DuringReignOf	A timespan defined by the reign or tenure of the anchor.	https://w3id.org/plato#DuringReignOf
Near	Close to the anchor, without a stated bearing or distance.	https://w3id.org/plato#Near
UpstreamOf	Upstream of the anchor along a watercourse.	https://w3id.org/plato#UpstreamOf
VariantOf	A name defined as a variant of the anchor name.	https://w3id.org/plato#VariantOf
Within	Inside the anchor.	https://w3id.org/plato#Within

Source stance

Starter concepts for plato:source_stance. How firmly the source itself asserts what an attestation records, as distinct from anyone’s confidence in it.

Value	Meaning	Full identifier
StanceAsserted	The source states it as so, on its own account. The default source stance, usually omitted.	https://w3id.org/plato#StanceAsserted
StanceDoubted	The source raises it and declines to settle it. Not a denial, which is plato:negated.	https://w3id.org/plato#StanceDoubted
StanceReported	The source passes it on without vouching for it: ‘it is said’, ‘as Cambden noteth’.	https://w3id.org/plato#StanceReported
StanceTentative	The source states it, but with a hedge: ‘as it seems’, ‘were (if not are)’.	https://w3id.org/plato#StanceTentative

Transcription accuracy

Starter concepts for plato:transcription_accuracy. How faithfully a transcribed value renders what the source shows.

Value	Meaning	Full identifier
TranscriptionAccurate	The transcription renders what the source shows.	https://w3id.org/plato#TranscriptionAccurate
TranscriptionFalse	The transcribed form is not in the source at all: a ghost form, kept because it circulates and must be recognisable.	https://w3id.org/plato#TranscriptionFalse
TranscriptionInaccurate	The transcription departs from what the source shows, by misreading or error, but is a reading of something the source contains.	https://w3id.org/plato#TranscriptionInaccurate

Transcription completeness

Starter concepts for plato:transcription_completeness. Whether a transcribed value is whole, and if not, whether the lost part can be supplied.

Value	Meaning	Full identifier
TranscriptionComplete	Nothing of the value is lost.	https://w3id.org/plato#TranscriptionComplete
TranscriptionNonReconstructable	Part of the value is lost and cannot be supplied.	https://w3id.org/plato#TranscriptionNonReconstructable
TranscriptionReconstructable	Part of the value is lost, damaged or abbreviated, but can be supplied with confidence.	https://w3id.org/plato#TranscriptionReconstructable

Certainty levels

The words that the certainty_level column, and certaintyLevel in JSON, can name, for certainty given in words rather than as a number.

Value	Meaning	Full identifier
Certain	The statement is certain: the source, or the contributor, has no doubt of it.	https://w3id.org/plato#Certain
LessCertain	The statement is probable but not certain.	https://w3id.org/plato#LessCertain
Uncertain	The statement is doubtful: possible, but not established.	https://w3id.org/plato#Uncertain

Relation types

The relations that the relation_type column of the relations sheet, and relationType in JSON, can name.

Value	Reads as	Inverse	Meaning
ContainedIn	contained_in	contains	The subject SpatialEntity is contained in the target SpatialEntity, for the attested timespan: a parish in a hundred, a hundred in a county. Not an identity relation and not fixed by the class model; it is a claim, with a source and a certainty, like any other attestation.