Revisiting and Simplifying RDF

RDF, a simple yet expressive data model, is widely recognised as the foundation for the Semantic Web. We revisit the RDF specifica- tion and analyse five problems: literals are not addressable, blank nodes are not addressable, reification is not semantically recognised, language tags are not addressable, and language tags can not be combined. We introduce SiRDF, a simplified data model with fewer modelling elements that overcomes the mentioned problems, and formally show its semantic equivalence to RDF. Based on the lessons of SiRDF we recommend a restricted usage of RDF that solves the mentioned problems while fully adhering to the original RDF specification.