An entity model, not a glossary.
A glossary maps a word to a sentence. An ontology maps an entity to other entities through typed relationships — and only the second can be queried. "Show me every execution platform governed by a standard that addresses kill criteria" is a traversal, not a lookup, and it is only answerable if the edges carry verbs.
The relationship vocabulary.
Every edge in the QIS graph carries one of these verbs. Each has an inverse, so the graph is traversable in both directions — you can ask what a standard governs and what governs it.
| Verb | Inverse | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
governedBy | governs | The subject operates under the authority or constraint of the object. |
implementedBy | implements | The object is a concrete realization of the subject. |
verifiedBy | verifies | The object provides evidence that the subject holds. |
auditedBy | audits | The object examines the subject for conformance after the fact. |
dependsOn | supports | The subject cannot function correctly without the object. |
extends | extendedBy | The subject adds to the object without replacing it. |
supersedes | supersededBy | The subject replaces the object, which is no longer current. |
requires | requiredBy | The subject imposes the object as a precondition. |
produces | producedBy | The subject emits the object as an output. |
consumes | consumedBy | The subject takes the object as an input. |
constrains | constrainedBy | The subject bounds what the object may do. |
delegatesTo | delegatedFrom | The subject transfers authority to the object. |
escalatesTo | escalatedFrom | The subject hands a decision upward to the object. |
addresses | addressedBy | The subject speaks to the object as a question or concern. |
notEquivalentTo | notEquivalentTo | The two are routinely conflated and are distinct. |
aliasOf | hasAlias | The subject is another name for the object. |
relatedTo | relatedTo | An association too weak or too general for a stronger verb. |
relatedTo is deliberately last and deliberately weak. Where a stronger verb applies it should be used; a graph in which everything is merely related to everything carries no more information than an index.
What every entity carries.
- Stable identifier —
QIS-TERM-00001. Identifiers never change. URLs may. Cite the identifier. - Canonical status — whether this is a documented industry term or a QIS proposal. Never blurred.
- Adoption status — experimental, emerging, widely used, draft standard, or deprecated. This is how the ontology records evolution rather than pretending the vocabulary is settled.
- Semantic aliases — the other names the same thing travels under.
- Typed relationships — verbs, with targets that may be terms, standards, MARQUE questions or concepts.
- Negative definitions — what this is routinely confused with, and why the distinction matters.
- Provenance — first published, last reviewed, review cycle. The same discipline as the verification register.
Why this is worth the extra structure.
An index is one manifestation of a strategy. A protocol specification is one manifestation of a concept. Model the product and your data ages the moment a vendor renames something; model the entity and the relationships survive.
The practical test is whether a machine can answer a question nobody anticipated. A glossary cannot. A typed graph can, which is why the edges matter more than the definitions.