Validation of SHACL Constraints over KGs with OWL 2 QL Ontologies via Rewriting

Abstract

Constraints have traditionally been used to ensure data quality. Recently, several constraint languages such as SHACL, as well as mechanisms for constraint validation, have been proposed for Knowledge Graphs (KGs). KGs are often enhanced with ontologies that define relevant background knowledge in a formal language such as OWL 2 QL. However, existing systems for constraint validation either ignore these ontologies, or compile ontologies and constraints into rules that should be executed by some rule engine. In the latter case, one has to rely on different systems when validating constrains over KGs and over ontology-enhanced KGs. In this work, we address this problem by defining rewriting techniques that allow to compile an OWL 2 QL ontology and a set of SHACL constraints into another set of SHACL constraints. We show that in the general case the rewriting may not exists, but it always exists for the positive fragment of SHACL. Our rewriting techniques allow to validate constraints over KGs with and without ontologies using the same SHACL validation engines.