{ "model": { "rank": 6425, "code": "thing-q1772", "model_id": "vr.tr.epitaph", "name": "epitaph", "purpose": "Enable an AI agent to recognise an epitaph, record whom and what it commemorates, assess the reliability and condition of its wording, and determine appropriate interpretation, reproduction or alteration.", "family": "Thing Registry", "category": "Information and virtual systems", "status": "research-draft", "kind": "thing", "plane": "INF", "domain": "INF.MED", "industry": "", "version": "", "url": "/models/thing/q1772/", "tier": 2, "score": 60, "payload": { "layer": "wikidata", "aliases": [ "epitaph of an animal", "Táfos", "Dis Manibus inscription" ], "aliasCount": 3, "merged": 3, "knownIn": 60, "facets": null, "markers": [], "lexicalClass": "", "senseRank": null, "alsoRegisteredAs": null, "source": { "dataset": "wikidata", "item": "Q1772", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1772", "license": "CC0 1.0" } }, "research": { "vercy": "1.0-draft", "publication": { "status": "research-draft", "adjudicationStatus": "unreviewed", "publishableCanonical": false, "generatedAt": "2026-09-07T14:29:37Z", "providers": [ "Codex", "Grok" ], "missingProviders": [], "pass": 2, "cost": { "grok": { "usd": 0.009129, "turns": 1, "seconds": 161.1, "error": null }, "codex": { "seconds": 87.5, "error": "Reading additional input from stdin...\nOpenAI Codex v0.153.3\n--------\nworkdir: R:\\02_PROJECTS\\02_Meta_Models_Platforms\\Ver.cy\\current\\thing-registry-backlog\nmodel: gpt-6-astra\nprovider: openai\napproval: never\nsandbox: read-only\nreasoning effort: none\nreasoning summaries: none\nsession id: 01a07c41-2426-70d2-8221-64a3c4b31f7b\n--------\nuser\nYou are drafting a Vercy meta-model for one registered thing. Answer as JSON only, no prose around it.\n\nThing: epitaph\nRegistry id: vr.tr.epitaph\nPlane / domain: INF / INF.MED\nRegistry definition: (none recorded)\nNames folded into this entry: (none)\n\nA Vercy m" } } }, "metaModel": { "id": "THING-Q1772", "registryId": "vr.tr.epitaph", "name": "epitaph", "version": "0.1.0-research.1", "entryKind": "thing", "family": "Thing Registry", "domain": [ "INF.MED" ], "status": "research-draft" }, "canonicalUrl": "https://ver.cy/models/thing/q1772/", "model": { "registry_id": "vr.tr.epitaph", "name": "epitaph", "purpose": "Enable an AI agent to recognise an epitaph, record whom and what it commemorates, assess the reliability and condition of its wording, and determine appropriate interpretation, reproduction or alteration.", "definition": "An epitaph is a commemorative text composed for a named deceased person, characteristically inscribed on a tomb, gravestone, sarcophagus, or funerary monument, that identifies the dead and records remembrance, kinship, dates, status, or a religious formula; the same term also names the literary genre of texts written in that form whether or not they are ever cut in stone.", "scope_statement": "This model owns the epitaph as a bounded commemorative text associated with a deceased person or group, including its wording, commemorative intent, relationship to a grave or memorial, textual witnesses and authority for proposed uses; it distinguishes installed inscriptions from proposed, displaced and literary epitaphs.", "in_scope": [ "Identification of the deceased person or group commemorated, including unresolved identities", "The boundaries, wording, layout and meaningful symbols of the epitaph", "Its asserted relationship to death, burial, remembrance and a particular memorial location", "Authorship, commissioning, inscription and subsequent textual changes", "Legibility, transcription confidence, translation and competing readings", "Authority and constraints for displaying, reproducing, correcting or replacing its text" ], "out_of_scope": [ "The deceased person's complete biography, genealogy or legal identity record", "The gravestone or memorial's full material construction and conservation model", "Cemetery administration, burial rights and management of human remains", "Obituaries, funeral speeches and extended memorial biographies as independent works", "General religious doctrine or funerary practice beyond evidence needed to interpret this epitaph" ], "distinguishing_features": [ "The text presents itself as commemorating someone as dead, rather than merely identifying a living donor, owner or dedicatee.", "Its funerary or memorial purpose is supported by wording, placement or documented intent; brevity or an appearance on stone alone is insufficient.", "A name-and-date inscription requires contextual assessment: the model records whether it functions as the epitaph, accompanies one or serves only as an identifier.", "A proposed or literary epitaph can be recorded without claiming that it was physically installed or that its subject has actually died.", "A quotation used in an epitaph is distinguished from the source work and from other memorial uses of the same words." ], "characteristics": [ { "name": "Commemorated subject", "kind": "relation", "unit_or_values": "One or more identified, provisionally identified or unidentified persons or groups", "why_it_matters": "Prevents the commemorated subject from being confused with the author, commissioner, speaker or person buried nearby." }, { "name": "Epitaph realisation", "kind": "category", "unit_or_values": "Installed inscription; proposed inscription; literary epitaph; reported lost inscription; unresolved", "why_it_matters": "Determines whether an agent may make claims about a physical inscription and its location." }, { "name": "Memorial and burial relationship", "kind": "relation", "unit_or_values": "Linked bearer, memorial location and burial location, each with an independently recorded evidential status", "why_it_matters": "An epitaph's location does not by itself establish the location of remains." }, { "name": "Textual extent", "kind": "category", "unit_or_values": "Included text blocks, line sequence, associated symbols and explicitly excluded adjacent inscriptions", "why_it_matters": "Establishes what belongs to this epitaph before transcription or comparison." }, { "name": "Language and script", "kind": "category", "unit_or_values": "Identified languages and scripts by passage; uncertain or unidentified where necessary", "why_it_matters": "Guides transcription and translation while preserving multilingual distinctions." }, { "name": "Recoverable wording", "kind": "state", "unit_or_values": "Fully readable; partly readable; unreadable; known only through another witness; not assessed", "why_it_matters": "Constrains how confidently an agent can quote or reconstruct the epitaph." }, { "name": "Transcription coverage", "kind": "measurement", "unit_or_values": "Readable graphemes divided by estimated total graphemes, expressed as a percentage only when the denominator is defensible", "why_it_matters": "Makes partial recovery explicit without treating supplied or conjectural letters as observed text." }, { "name": "Textual attribution", "kind": "relation", "unit_or_values": "Attributed author, source work, commissioner and inscriber, with evidence and uncertainty for each role", "why_it_matters": "Separates composing the words from selecting, authorising and physically executing them." }, { "name": "Revision status", "kind": "state", "unit_or_values": "Proposed; attested as installed; subsequently amended; replaced; removed; history unresolved", "why_it_matters": "Prevents a draft, replacement or later reading from silently superseding the historically attested wording." } ], "affordances": [ "Identify and delimit an epitaph within a larger grave marker or memorial.", "Produce a faithful transcription that marks damage, uncertain readings and editorial expansions.", "Link the epitaph to its commemorated subjects, bearer, witnesses and any identified source quotation.", "Compare versions and translations while preserving distinctions between observed wording and reconstruction.", "Assess whether a proposed display, correction, replacement or reproduction has adequate evidence and authority." ] }, "sources": [ { "id": "wikipedia-epitaph", "title": "Epitaph. Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation)", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epitaph", "what_it_supports": "Primary sense as funerary inscription; literary-genre extension; formulaic phrases; distinction from eulogy and obituary.", "url_status": "live" }, { "id": "britannica-epitaph", "title": "Epitaph. Encyclopædia Britannica (Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.)", "url": "", "what_it_supports": "Historical range from ancient verse epitaphs through Christian church-monument practice to modern cemetery inscriptions." }, { "id": "oed-epitaph", "title": "epitaph, n. Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford University Press)", "url": "", "what_it_supports": "English lexical history: inscribed commemorative text versus transferred literary use." }, { "id": "lattimore-1942", "title": "Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs. Richmond Lattimore. University of Illinois Press, 1942 (reprinted 1962)", "url": "", "what_it_supports": "Ancient Mediterranean funerary formulae, verse versus prose, and themes that still structure later Christian and humanist epitaphs." } ], "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "commemorative-identity", "name": "Commemorative identity", "description": "Establishes whose remembrance the text serves and why it qualifies as an epitaph.", "rationale": "An agent must distinguish an epitaph from adjacent identification, dedication and other memorial writing.", "layers": [ { "id": "epitaph-boundary", "name": "Epitaph boundary", "description": "Determines which words and associated marks constitute the commemorative text.", "findings": [ { "id": "funerary-function", "name": "Funerary function", "description": "Records the evidence for treating this bounded text as an epitaph, including whether that classification remains provisional.", "questions": [ { "text": "What wording, placement or documented intent establishes that this text commemorates someone as dead?", "kind": "definition", "id": "funerary-function-q01" }, { "text": "Do names, dates, prayers and neighbouring inscriptions belong to this epitaph or constitute separate elements?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "funerary-function-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "subject-and-voice", "name": "Subject and voice", "description": "Separates the commemorated subject from the speaker, addressee and other named parties.", "findings": [ { "id": "commemorated-and-speaking-parties", "name": "Commemorated and speaking parties", "description": "Records who is remembered and whose voice the wording adopts without inferring authorship from grammatical person.", "questions": [ { "text": "Who is commemorated, and what evidence resolves names, initials or collective references?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "commemorated-and-speaking-parties-q01" }, { "text": "Does the text speak as the deceased, as mourners or through another voice, and whom does it address?", "kind": "definition", "id": "commemorated-and-speaking-parties-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "wording-and-reading", "name": "Wording and reading", "description": "Preserves the epitaph's observable expression and separates it from editorial interpretation.", "rationale": "Line breaks, abbreviations, missing letters and translation choices can materially change how an epitaph is understood.", "layers": [ { "id": "attested-expression", "name": "Attested expression", "description": "Captures wording and presentation from a specified textual or physical witness.", "findings": [ { "id": "faithful-transcription", "name": "Faithful transcription", "description": "Records spelling, punctuation, lineation and meaningful marks while explicitly distinguishing supplied text.", "questions": [ { "text": "What wording, line breaks, abbreviations and associated symbols can be directly read in this witness?", "kind": "measurement", "id": "faithful-transcription-q01" }, { "text": "Which characters are damaged, obscured or conjectural, and how are those distinctions marked in the transcription?", "kind": "measurement", "id": "faithful-transcription-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "interpretive-renderings", "name": "Interpretive renderings", "description": "Connects translations and explanations to the exact passages they interpret.", "findings": [ { "id": "translation-and-allusion", "name": "Translation and allusion", "description": "Records language, expanded abbreviations and possible quotations without presenting uncertain interpretations as settled readings.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which passages require translation or abbreviation expansion, and what ambiguities must the rendering retain?", "kind": "definition", "id": "translation-and-allusion-q01" }, { "text": "What evidence identifies a quotation, scriptural reference or other allusion rather than a merely similar phrase?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "translation-and-allusion-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "memorial-embodiment", "name": "Memorial embodiment", "description": "Relates the epitaph to its bearer, setting and present accessibility.", "rationale": "An agent must avoid confusing a text's memorial location with a burial location or a documented proposal with an installed inscription.", "layers": [ { "id": "placement-and-realisation", "name": "Placement and realisation", "description": "Records whether and where the text has been embodied as an inscription.", "findings": [ { "id": "bearer-and-burial-link", "name": "Bearer and burial link", "description": "Distinguishes the physical bearer, commemorative setting and any independently supported connection to remains.", "questions": [ { "text": "Is this wording installed, proposed, purely literary or known only from a report of a former inscription?", "kind": "definition", "id": "bearer-and-burial-link-q01" }, { "text": "What evidence connects its bearer and location to the commemorated subject's burial, if any?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "bearer-and-burial-link-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "reading-condition", "name": "Reading condition", "description": "Assesses obstacles to reading the epitaph without taking ownership of the memorial's full conservation record.", "findings": [ { "id": "legibility-and-observation-limits", "name": "Legibility and observation limits", "description": "Records which text areas can be inspected and which apparent losses may result from the observation method.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which passages are presently readable, and when and by what observation method was that assessed?", "kind": "measurement", "id": "legibility-and-observation-limits-q01" }, { "text": "Would another image, lighting angle or authorised inspection resolve the reading, or is specialist conservation assessment needed?", "kind": "action", "id": "legibility-and-observation-limits-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "composition-and-textual-history", "name": "Composition and textual history", "description": "Tracks how the wording was created, selected, installed and subsequently transmitted.", "rationale": "A familiar attribution or modern transcription cannot establish who wrote an epitaph or exactly what was originally inscribed.", "layers": [ { "id": "creation-and-commission", "name": "Creation and commission", "description": "Separates the participants and events that produced the commemorative wording.", "findings": [ { "id": "authorship-and-selection", "name": "Authorship and selection", "description": "Records supported roles in composition, selection, approval and inscription, including uncertainty about self-authored epitaphs.", "questions": [ { "text": "What evidence identifies who composed, selected, commissioned and inscribed the words?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "authorship-and-selection-q01" }, { "text": "Which dates refer to composition, approval or installation, rather than the subject's birth or death?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "authorship-and-selection-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "witnesses-and-revisions", "name": "Witnesses and revisions", "description": "Relates photographs, copies, publications and altered inscriptions without collapsing their differences.", "findings": [ { "id": "variant-wording", "name": "Variant wording", "description": "Records disagreements between witnesses and distinguishes physical revision from transcription or editorial variation.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which inspected witnesses support each reading, and how close are they to the inscription in time and access?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "variant-wording-q01" }, { "text": "Do differences indicate re-cutting, replacement, copying error, translation or an unresolved alternative reading?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "variant-wording-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "interpretation-and-permitted-treatment", "name": "Interpretation and permitted treatment", "description": "Supports responsible use of commemorative claims and decisions about changing or circulating the epitaph.", "rationale": "An epitaph expresses remembrance and may contain contested claims; quoting it and changing the inscription require different evidence and authority.", "layers": [ { "id": "commemorative-claims", "name": "Commemorative claims", "description": "Separates what the epitaph says about the deceased from what independent evidence establishes.", "findings": [ { "id": "claim-and-context", "name": "Claim and context", "description": "Records praise, identity statements, death accounts and other assertions as statements made by the epitaph.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which statements are biographical assertions, expressions of grief, praise, humour or religious hope?", "kind": "definition", "id": "claim-and-context-q01" }, { "text": "Which assertions have independent support or documented dispute, and which must remain attributed solely to the epitaph?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "claim-and-context-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "use-and-change-authority", "name": "Use and change authority", "description": "Records the authority and context needed for a specific proposed treatment of the text.", "findings": [ { "id": "authorised-text-treatment", "name": "Authorised text treatment", "description": "Distinguishes editorial correction in a transcription from physical alteration and records applicable permissions or unresolved authority.", "questions": [ { "text": "Does the proposed action quote, translate, annotate, reproduce, re-cut or replace the epitaph, and what permissions or consultation apply to that action?", "kind": "action", "id": "authorised-text-treatment-q01" }, { "text": "Who has evidenced authority over the proposed treatment, and how will the attested wording and reasons for any change remain traceable?", "kind": "action", "id": "authorised-text-treatment-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "evidence-and-external-alignment", "name": "Evidence and external alignment", "description": "What the world already says about this thing, gathered so the model can be checked against it.", "rationale": "A model that cannot be lined up against existing standards, identifiers and practice cannot be adopted by anyone who already uses them.", "layers": [ { "id": "reported-evidence", "name": "Reported evidence", "description": "Findings from the breadth pass, kept separate from the structural claims.", "findings": [ { "id": "evidence-kinds", "name": "Kinds and varieties", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ "Headstone, ledger-stone, and cemetery-marker inscriptions", "Church-monument and wall-tablet inscriptions", "Ancient and museum epitaphs on stelae, sarcophagi, ash chests, and columbarium plaques", "Cenotaph and war-memorial inscriptions (text on a monument that may not mark a burial)", "Literary and poetic epitaphs composed for print or recitation rather than for a stone", "Formulaic religious epitaphs (Latin hic iacet / requiescat in pace, Dis Manibus, Quranic verses, Hebrew תנצבה and related stock phrases)", "Buried tomb epitaphs (Chinese muzhiming and comparable entombed memorial texts)", "Authorial or self-composed epitaphs commissioned or written by the subject in life" ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-kinds-q01", "text": "Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of epitaph this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-identifiers", "name": "Identifiers and schemes", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ { "scheme": "Wikidata", "value_or_pattern": "Q326371", "note": "Item for epitaph as commemorative inscription; related literary-work senses exist as separate items and should not be conflated." }, { "scheme": "Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)", "value_or_pattern": "Epitaphs", "note": "Established topical heading for collections and studies of epitaphs; narrower headings exist by language and place." }, { "scheme": "Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT)", "value_or_pattern": "epitaphs", "note": "Document/object type under inscriptions; use the AAT concept, not a free-text synonym such as 'gravestone text'." } ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-identifiers-q01", "text": "Which of these identifiers and schemes hold for the sense of epitaph this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-standards-and-regulation", "name": "Standards and regulation", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ "EpiDoc Guidelines (EpiDoc Collaborative, TEI encoding of epigraphic documents, including funerary inscriptions)", "Leiden Conventions for epigraphic transcription (international epigraphic practice, not a statute)", "ISO 21127 / CIDOC CRM (ISO; conceptual reference model used to document inscriptions as cultural objects)", "Diocesan churchyard and faculty rules under the Care of Churches and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure 2018 (Church of England / diocesan chancellors): wording, lettering, and materials of churchyard memorials", "Municipal cemetery bylaws (e.g. German Friedhofssatzungen; UK burial-authority regulations): permitted languages, sizes, and sometimes content of inscriptions", "Heritage listing and scheduled-monument controls on historic inscribed stones (national heritage bodies such as Historic England, Monument boards, and equivalents)" ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-standards-and-regulation-q01", "text": "Which of these standards and regulation hold for the sense of epitaph this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-real-world-use", "name": "Real-world use", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ "Cut, cast, or applied as lettering on headstones and kerbs in active cemeteries and churchyards", "Painted, incised, or brass-inlaid on wall monuments inside churches and chapels", "Recorded and published by genealogists, family-history societies, and monumental-inscription surveys", "Edited as primary evidence by epigraphers (CIL, IG, and later corpora) and by museum catalogues of stelae and sarcophagi", "Composed as a literary set-piece (Greek elegiac couplets; English Augustan and Romantic epitaph poems) independent of any burial", "Quoted or recut when a stone is moved, restored, or replaced, which is how many texts now survive only in paper transcripts" ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-real-world-use-q01", "text": "Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of epitaph this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-measurements", "name": "Typical measurements", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ { "quantity": "Letter height of the main commemorative line", "typical_range": "10-80", "unit": "mm" }, { "quantity": "Length of the inscribed or composed text", "typical_range": "5-200", "unit": "words" }, { "quantity": "Number of named deceased on one stone or panel", "typical_range": "1-8", "unit": "persons" }, { "quantity": "Inscribed panel or face width on a typical churchyard headstone", "typical_range": "0.3-1.2", "unit": "m" } ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-measurements-q01", "text": "Which of these typical measurements hold for the sense of epitaph this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-failure-modes-and-hazards", "name": "Failure modes and hazards", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ "Weathering, sugaring of marble, slate delamination, and lichen cover that make letters unreadable", "Loss of applied lead or bronze lettering by theft or corrosion", "Recutting or 'restoration' that silently changes names, dates, or theology", "Wrong dates, misidentified persons, or inverted kinship in the original commission, which then propagate through genealogical copies", "Cemetery or faculty refusal of wording, script, or imagery that breaches local memorial rules", "Vandalism of stones and, for portable plaques, theft of the object that carries the text", "Paper or database transcription error (misread minims, expanded abbreviations, normalised spelling) treated as the original" ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-failure-modes-and-hazards-q01", "text": "Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of epitaph this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-regional-variation", "name": "Regional variation", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ "Latin West and Catholic practice: hic iacet, requiescat in pace, orate pro anima, often with arms on church monuments", "Protestant Northern Europe and the Anglophone cemetery: vernacular 'Here lies' / 'Sacred to the memory of', with longer biographical and moral verse from the seventeenth century onward", "Roman pagan epitaphs: Dis Manibus (D.M.) plus name, age, and often a cursus or household role; Greek epitaphs frequently in elegiac verse", "Jewish matzevot: Hebrew (sometimes bilingual), paternal lineage, date by Jewish calendar, closing acronym תנצבה", "Islamic funerary inscriptions: Arabic, Quranic verses (commonly 2:156), name and Hijri date; orientation and cemetery layout follow local fiqh and custom", "China: entombed muzhiming (墓志铭) as a buried biographical epitaph, distinct from above-ground spirit-road stelae (神道碑)", "Modern municipal cemeteries: multilingual family stones, photographic ceramics, and tightly regulated letter sizes that older churchyards did not impose" ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-regional-variation-q01", "text": "Which of these regional variation hold for the sense of epitaph this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-neighbours", "name": "Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ { "name": "epigraph", "difference": "An epigraph is any inscription, or a motto placed at the head of a literary text; an epitaph is specifically a commemorative text for the dead. Test: does the text name a deceased person as the object of commemoration?" }, { "name": "eulogy", "difference": "A eulogy is spoken praise at a funeral or memorial service. Test: is the text delivered orally in a rite, or fixed as the commemorative inscription/genre-piece?" }, { "name": "obituary", "difference": "An obituary is a published death notice or biographical notice in the press or an institutional record. Test: is the intended medium a newspaper, website, or register rather than a monument or the epitaph genre?" }, { "name": "headstone / gravestone", "difference": "The stone is the object; the epitaph is the text it bears (a stone may have only a name and dates, still an epitaph, or a long verse). Test: are you identifying the artefact or the wording?" }, { "name": "cenotaph", "difference": "A cenotaph is an empty-tomb monument; it may carry an epitaph, but the epitaph is not the monument. Test: are you classifying the structure (no body present) or the commemorative text?" }, { "name": "epitaphios logos", "difference": "The Classical Greek civic funeral oration (e.g. Pericles) is a public speech over the war dead, not an inscribed personal commemorative text. Test: civic oral performance versus named funerary inscription or its literary imitation." }, { "name": "dedication inscription", "difference": "A dedication commemorates a gift, building, or vow, often by a living donor. Test: is the primary act the commemoration of a death, or the offering of an object or structure?" }, { "name": "memorial plaque (non-funerary)", "difference": "Plaques mark events, benefactions, or surviving persons as readily as the dead. Test: is the subject a deceased individual commemorated as such?" } ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-neighbours-q01", "text": "Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of epitaph this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "openQuestions": [ "Should the registry's epitaph entry include purely literary, fictional and anticipatory epitaphs, or link them to a neighbouring literary-work model?", "Under which cultural and registry conventions does a name-and-date inscription alone qualify as an epitaph?", "When does an added inscription or replacement wording become a separate epitaph rather than a revision of the same one?", "How should nonverbal symbols and multilingual passages be bounded when they carry commemorative meaning independently of adjacent words?", "Which jurisdictional, custodial and community sources should establish authority for reproducing or physically altering a particular epitaph?" ], "statistics": { "bundles": 6, "layers": 11, "findings": 18, "questions": 28 } }, "draft": { "generator": "vr.draft.v3", "status": "draft-generated", "researched": false, "archetype": "work, medium or creative form", "method": "Written from the archetype playbook - what this kind of thing needs beyond identity and provenance - and from the structure that recurred across 6,333 models already researched by two engines. Applied to this entry by rule. No source was read for this thing and no claim here is researched. This entry carries no facets of its own, so they were inferred from its domain - a guess about a whole domain applied to one thing.", "facetsInferred": true, "nextPass": "A researcher replaces this draft with a sourced specification. Treat every sentence below as a proposal to argue with.", "purpose": "Give an agent a durable, checkable way to recognise a epitaph, record what state it is in, and decide what may be done with it.", "whatItIs": "Enable an AI agent to recognise an epitaph, record whom and what it commemorates, assess the reliability and condition of its wording, and determine appropriate interpretation, reproduction or alteration.", "characteristics": { "substance": "information", "origin": "conceptual", "agency": "inert" }, "whatYouCanDoWithIt": [ "read and interpreted", "observed and measured" ], "distinguishingFeatures": [ "Names folded into this entry, which a task may need to split apart again: epitaph of an animal, Táfos, Dis Manibus inscription.", "3 finer distinctions are held as aliases rather than separate entries, because telling them apart needs a task that asks for it.", "Described in 60 Wikipedia languages, which is a measure of how widely the thing is known, not of how important it is." ], "openQuestionsForResearch": [ "Which of the bundles below does a real task actually need, and which are ceremony?", "What does this thing have that the facets do not capture at all?", "Which neighbouring kind is most often confused with a epitaph, and on what evidence are they told apart?" ], "whatItIsMadeOf": "content that has to be carried by something else", "physicalCharacter": [ "Does nothing on its own; everything it does, something else did to it.", "These come from the domain this entry sits in rather than from the entry itself, so treat them as a first guess about the whole domain applied to one thing." ], "whatCanBeDoneWithIt": [ "read it and act on what it says", "observe it, measure it, record its state" ], "howItIsRecognised": [ "What is seen is a copy or a performance, not the work. Recognising the work means recognising the content through whatever is carrying it." ], "relatedModels": [ { "relation": "covers", "note": "Finer kinds folded into this entry because telling them apart needs a task that asks for it. Each is a model waiting to be split out when one does.", "targets": [ "epitaph of an animal", "Táfos", "Dis Manibus inscription" ] } ], "standing": "Described in 60 Wikipedia languages, which measures how widely it is written about rather than how important or how common it is. 3 finer distinctions are held inside this entry as names rather than as separate models.", "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "identity-and-classification", "name": "Identity, naming and classification", "description": "How an agent tells one epitaph from another, and a epitaph from things that resemble it.", "rationale": "Recognition comes before every other claim. Without stable identity nothing else in the model can be trusted to be about the same thing twice.", "layers": [ { "id": "naming-and-identifiers", "name": "Names and identifiers", "description": "The names this thing goes by and the identifiers that survive translation and time.", "findings": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases", "name": "Preferred name, aliases and local names", "description": "Which name to use, which names mean the same thing, and which merely sound similar.", "questions": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the name of a epitaph, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the name of a epitaph, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the name of a epitaph is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers", "name": "Stable identifiers and external keys", "description": "Identifiers that keep pointing at this kind of thing across systems and languages.", "questions": [ { "id": "stable-identifiers-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an identifier for a epitaph, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an identifier for a epitaph, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an identifier for a epitaph is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "classification-and-granularity", "name": "Classification and granularity", "description": "Where a epitaph sits among kinds, and how finely a task needs to cut it.", "findings": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents", "name": "Kind, parents and neighbouring kinds", "description": "The classes this thing belongs to and the ones it is next to.", "questions": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the kind of a epitaph, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the kind of a epitaph, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the kind of a epitaph is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features", "name": "Distinguishing features", "description": "What separates a epitaph from the things most often confused with it.", "questions": [ { "id": "distinguishing-features-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes what distinguishes a epitaph, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about what distinguishes a epitaph, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once what distinguishes a epitaph is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "state-and-lifecycle", "name": "State and lifecycle", "description": "The states a epitaph passes through and the events that move it between them.", "rationale": "Most decisions about a thing depend on what state it is in now, which is a claim with a time on it, not a property.", "layers": [ { "id": "lifecycle-stages", "name": "Lifecycle stages", "description": "From coming into existence to ceasing to be one of these.", "findings": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions", "name": "Stages and transitions", "description": "The stages worth naming and what moves a epitaph between them.", "questions": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the lifecycle of a epitaph, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the lifecycle of a epitaph, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the lifecycle of a epitaph is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "observations-and-status", "name": "Observations and current status", "description": "What is observed about a epitaph, how often and by whom.", "findings": [ { "id": "observation-record", "name": "Observation record", "description": "How an observation of a epitaph is recorded so that it can be superseded rather than overwritten.", "questions": [ { "id": "observation-record-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an observation of a epitaph, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an observation of a epitaph, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an observation of a epitaph is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "content-and-access", "name": "Content, encoding and access", "description": "What a epitaph says, how it is encoded and who may read it.", "rationale": "An informational thing carries content that can be copied, versioned and withheld, none of which its physical carrier explains.", "layers": [ { "id": "content-and-encoding", "name": "Content and encoding", "description": "The content itself, its format and its language.", "findings": [ { "id": "content-and-format", "name": "Content, format and language", "description": "What a epitaph contains and in what form it is held.", "questions": [ { "id": "content-and-format-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the content of a epitaph, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "content-and-format-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the content of a epitaph, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "content-and-format-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the content of a epitaph is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "access-and-rights", "name": "Access, rights and retention", "description": "Who may read, copy or change it, and for how long it is kept.", "findings": [ { "id": "access-rules", "name": "Access rules and retention", "description": "The permissions attached to a epitaph and the period it survives.", "questions": [ { "id": "access-rules-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes access to a epitaph, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "access-rules-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about access to a epitaph, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "access-rules-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once access to a epitaph is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "work-and-manifestation", "name": "Work, version and copy", "description": "Which level of epitaph a statement is about.", "rationale": "The work, the edition, the file and the copy in hand are four things; rights and content attach to different ones.", "layers": [ { "id": "levels", "name": "Levels of the thing", "description": "Work, expression, manifestation and item, in plain terms.", "findings": [ { "id": "level-rules", "name": "What belongs at each level", "description": "Which facts hold for the work and which only for one copy.", "questions": [ { "id": "level-rules-q01", "text": "For epitaph, which facts belong to the work itself, which to a version, and which to a single copy?", "kind": "boundary" }, { "id": "level-rules-q02", "text": "What identifier exists at each level, and which one is being cited?", "kind": "definition" } ] } ] }, { "id": "versions", "name": "Versions, editions and variants", "description": "How versions differ and which is canonical to whom.", "findings": [ { "id": "version-record", "name": "Versions and canonicity", "description": "Differences that matter and who calls one authoritative.", "questions": [ { "id": "version-record-q01", "text": "Which versions or editions of epitaph exist, and how do they differ substantively?", "kind": "definition" }, { "id": "version-record-q02", "text": "Who treats which version as authoritative, and for what purpose?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "authorship-and-rights", "name": "Authorship, rights and permitted use", "description": "Who made epitaph and what may be done with it.", "rationale": "Rights are jurisdictional, time-limited and attached to a level, and an agent that ignores that will copy what it may not.", "layers": [ { "id": "authorship", "name": "Authorship and contribution", "description": "Who contributed what, and in what capacity.", "findings": [ { "id": "contribution-record", "name": "Contributors and roles", "description": "The people and bodies behind it, with their roles.", "questions": [ { "id": "contribution-record-q01", "text": "Who authored or contributed to epitaph, in what roles, and how is that attested?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "id": "contribution-record-q02", "text": "Where authorship is disputed or anonymous, what is recorded instead?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "rights", "name": "Rights and permissions", "description": "Which rights subsist, where, until when, and what they permit.", "findings": [ { "id": "rights-record", "name": "Rights, term and permitted acts", "description": "The regime in force and what it allows.", "questions": [ { "id": "rights-record-q01", "text": "What rights subsist in epitaph, in which jurisdictions, and until when?", "kind": "definition" }, { "id": "rights-record-q02", "text": "Which acts are permitted without further permission, and which must an agent refuse?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "provenance-and-evidence", "name": "Provenance, evidence and time", "description": "Where every claim about a epitaph came from and when it held.", "rationale": "A claim without a source and a time cannot be superseded, only overwritten, and an agent that overwrites loses the ability to explain itself.", "layers": [ { "id": "source-and-authority", "name": "Source and authority", "description": "Who said it, on what evidence, and how strongly.", "findings": [ { "id": "claim-provenance", "name": "Claim provenance and confidence", "description": "The authority behind each claim about a epitaph and how confident it is.", "questions": [ { "id": "claim-provenance-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes a claim about a epitaph, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about a claim about a epitaph, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once a claim about a epitaph is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "time-and-versions", "name": "Time, versions and supersession", "description": "When a claim was true, when it was learnt, and what replaced it.", "findings": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession", "name": "Validity period and supersession", "description": "How an old claim about a epitaph is retired without being erased.", "questions": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the validity of a claim about a epitaph, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the validity of a claim about a epitaph, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the validity of a claim about a epitaph is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "statistics": { "bundles": 6, "layers": 12, "findings": 14, "questions": 38 } } } }