26.1Paraphrase and reformulation
The minimal useful record must still answer a concrete classificatory question: when do two wordings ask the same thing? Here a proposed paraphrase relation can be stated narrowly. Two questions count as paraphrases relative to a fixed context when each preserves the relevant question that the other poses — the same subject, the same task, and the same operative conditions. The context is held constant precisely so that agreement is not manufactured by silently relaxing one of its terms.
The catalog's entrance case illustrates both the proposal and its boundary. "Can we enter without stairs?" and "Is step-free entry available?" preserve the same relevant question for a fixed entrance task, so a paraphrase link is defensible. A broader question about equitable access may bring in additional possible requirements; whether it is useful is not at issue, but it does not preserve the fixed question and so is not licensed as a paraphrase of the pair. The staffing case gives a sharper contrast. Qh asks whether later hours are feasible, Qs asks whether a second staff member is available, and Qa asks whether an entrance can be used without steps. Extra staffing is stipulated to be necessary for later hours, yet its availability does not decide whether later hours should be chosen. Necessary means support an answer to Qh but do not make Qs the same question; Qa remains outside the exchange altogether. Dependence is a relation among answers under a declared interpretation, not a license to merge questions.
The same discipline applies to evidence. Contributors A and B cite the same staffing note while preferring different priorities. Citing in common is a relation between texts and sources; recommending in common would be a relation between positions. Neither entails paraphrase.
One qualification governs all of these entries: they are proposed interpretations of relations among questions, not a validated ontology. Accordingly, the record needs no more machinery than the task warrants. An annotated document that states the fixed context, names the questions, and marks one proposed paraphrase with its scope is sufficient; a larger graph would add form without demonstrated benefit.
For the fixed entrance task, "Can we enter without stairs?" and "Is step-free entry available?" may be treated as paraphrases: both ask the same relevant question about the same entrance under the same conditions. Nothing follows yet about all other formulations concerning accessibility. A broader question about equitable access may add possible requirements, such as width, signage, or assistance, and therefore asks more than whether one entrance can be used without steps.
A reformulation can be useful precisely because it changes scope. Suppose someone rewrites "Can we enter without stairs?" as "What must be done to make our services accessible to everyone?" The second question is helpful for planning, but it does not preserve the first question under fixed conditions. It opens additional standards and obligations. Calling the two equivalent would conceal that enlargement. The better record is therefore twofold: identify the narrower question answered by the rewrite, and mark the added scope as a change in what counts as a satisfactory answer.
The staffing material shows a similar pressure. The staffing question, whether a second staff member is available, and the feasibility question, whether later hours are feasible, are not paraphrases. Extra staffing is stipulated as necessary for later hours, so the staffing question supplies information needed by the feasibility question. But availability of that person does not settle whether later hours should be chosen. A reformulation that turns the staffing question into a question about priorities has silently replaced the relevant issue.
The paraphrase and scope distinctions above remain proposed interpretations of the catalog's texts, not a validated ontology. The practical demand is modest: when a rewrite preserves the relevant question under fixed conditions, record it as a paraphrase; when it adds or removes standards, record that scope change. Editors can then compare claims without treating every helpful rewording as identity.
26.2Subquestions and answer dependency
Reformulating a question may change its scope; once that change is recorded, a further distinction becomes available. A subquestion is one whose answer supplies information needed to answer a broader question, without itself being that question. In the catalog example, Qh asks whether later service hours are feasible, while Qs asks whether a second staff member is available. Because extra staffing is stipulated to be necessary for later hours, Qs belongs inside the inquiry posed by Qh: an answer to Qs constrains what can be said about feasibility.
Yet the dependence runs only one way as to content. Qs is narrower than Qh. If the necessary staff member is unavailable, that negative answer rules out feasibility under the stipulation. Availability alone does not establish feasibility, because necessity is not sufficiency. Additional conditions, if any, would need specification. This asymmetry explains answer dependency without treating the narrower question as a paraphrase of the broader one.
The catalog also shows where not to infer dependency. Qa asks whether an entrance can be used without steps. In a fixed entrance task, a step-free question may reformulate Qa, but Qa is not thereby a subquestion of Qh. Accessibility considerations may sit alongside service-hours planning under a broader practical agenda, yet shared topic does not establish that one question must be answered in order to answer the other. The relation is proximity unless the declared interpretation says more.
The qualification is that these relations describe texts under stated interpretations. Calling Qs a subquestion of Qh asserts a particular reading of their domains and of what counts as necessary information; it does not establish a validated ontology of questions. That modesty matters because a richer scheme invites disputes about categorization and extra editorial work. The gain is narrower: where a smaller question supplies information relevant to the larger one under a declared dependency, recording the dependency preserves work already done and marks what remains open, without collapsing the two inquiries into one.
Suppose the second staff member is stipulated to be necessary for later hours. That makes the answer to Qs, whether a second staff member is available, a condition that any answer to Qh, whether later hours are feasible, must respect: if no second staff member is available, later hours are infeasible under the stipulation. The reverse inference, however, fails. Availability does not by itself decide whether later hours should be chosen. A feasibility question may be settled while the service decision remains open, because that decision also weighs priorities the staffing count does not encode. Here necessity is not sufficiency: the subquestion supplies information on which the broader answer depends, without determining the normative priority that the broader question carries.
The distinction surfaces in the catalog's contributor record. Contributor A and Contributor B cite the same staffing note yet prefer different priorities. Their reliance on one item of evidence establishes a relation between a text and several questions; their recommendations diverge rather than coincide. Treating shared evidence as shared recommendation would erase precisely the gap that the necessity claim leaves open. Under declared interpretations, one note can bear on more than one question without licensing a common answer to any of them.
Paraphrase needs the same scope discipline. For the fixed entrance task, the questions "Can we enter without stairs?" and "Is step-free entry available?" may be proposed as paraphrases, since they ask after the same accessibility condition. A broader question about equitable access, by contrast, admits additional possible requirements, so neither formulation exhausts it. Qa, asking whether an entrance can be used without steps, can therefore inform that broader question without settling it. In each case the relation is proposed as an interpretation of the catalog's texts rather than a validated ontology, and its force extends only as far as the task and interpretation warrant.
26.3Supporting and opposing reasons
Reasons enter the catalog with a direction relative to a stated proposal. Take the proposal that later service hours be adopted, the question Qh of whether they are feasible, and the question Qs of whether a second staff member is available. Extra staffing is stipulated necessary for later hours, so an answer to Qs bears on the proposal. But bearing on it is not yet the same as supporting it: the direction depends on what the answer supplies and on which step of the argument it reaches.
Three roles follow. If a second staff member is available, the stated necessity condition is met, and that fact supports the feasibility of later hours. If no second staff member is available, the same condition is unmet, and under the stipulation that fact opposes the proposal. The third role is narrower. If the case for later hours relies on the assumption that meeting the staffing condition also establishes that later hours deserve priority, then observing that a staffing count informs the service decision without determining its normative priority challenges that assumption. It does not oppose later hours themselves; it blocks an inference drawn from them.
The accessibility question Qa permits the same separation. If someone assumes that step-free entry settles equitable access, the further point that the broader question carries additional possible requirements challenges that assumption. The challenge leaves open whether step-free entry is still worth securing.
This is why shared evidence does not fix the relation. Contributors A and B may cite the same staffing note and still prefer different priorities: one takes availability as decisive, the other treats it as one consideration among several. The reason, the proposal it bears on, and the assumed link among them must therefore be recorded separately. On the fixed entrance task, "Can we enter without stairs?" and "Is step-free entry available?" may be read as paraphrases, but those relations remain proposed interpretations under declared readings, not validated classifications of questions as such.
When a contributor answers a request for staffing evidence by asking how the figure was obtained, the request is directed at the evidential support for the claim that a second staff member is available. It does not yet take a position on whether later hours are feasible, still less on whether later hours should be chosen. Calling that response an objection to the proposal collapses two distinct targets: the claim being evidenced and the decision that the claim would inform.
The catalog's stipulated dependence keeps those targets apart. Extra staffing is necessary for later hours, so evidence about staffing bears on the question of feasibility. But staffing availability does not decide whether later hours should be chosen; that decision can turn on other considerations. A reason that establishes staffing availability therefore supports one claim within the reasoning while leaving the recommendation untouched. A reason that denies staffing availability opposes the feasibility claim, not directly the recommendation, unless the recommendation is explicitly conditional on feasibility. By contrast, a reason offered against choosing later hours—however staffing turns out—does oppose the proposal itself. The same material can thus function differently depending on which question it is offered for.
Scope also matters on the question side. The questions "Can we enter without stairs?" and "Is step-free entry available?" may count as paraphrases for the fixed entrance task, while a broader question about equitable access leaves room for further requirements. A reason sufficient for the narrow question may therefore be insufficient for the broad one. The one qualification to retain is that these relations are proposed interpretations of the texts under the declared readings, not a validated catalogue of question types. What matters is that an evidence demand, an assumption challenge, and a rejection of the proposal are not interchangeable merely because each raises difficulties for the same line of argument.
26.4A shared source without shared intent
The distinction just reached about the target of an objection carries over to evidence. Two contributors can rely on the same report while endorsing conflicting policies, because the relation each asserts between that report and a proposed action need not be the same relation.
Take the catalog's staffing note. Both Contributor A and Contributor B cite it when discussing whether a second staff member is available, and both connect that question to whether later service hours are feasible. Extra staffing is stipulated to be necessary for later hours; its availability therefore constrains feasibility. But feasibility is not priority. Contributor A, attending to the entrance question, may judge that step-free entry should come first and that later hours should wait. Contributor B, attending to the hours question, may judge that later hours should be adopted once staffing is available. The two recommendations conflict even though both rest on the same note and neither invents a fact about staffing.
The inference licensed by the shared source is correspondingly narrow. It establishes that both contributors treat the report as relevant evidence under the interpretations they declare. It does not establish that they apply the necessity claim identically, weight accessibility against convenience identically, or support the same policy. Shared-evidence and shared-recommendation are separate relations, so a catalog may correctly record the former while recording disagreement about the latter.
The limit is the fixed task. For one entrance and one service-hours question, the necessity claim is stipulated; extending the same relations to a broader question about equitable access would require additional possible requirements not settled here. Even the paraphrase status of "Can we enter without stairs?" and "Is step-free entry available?" holds only for that fixed entrance task. All of these relations remain proposed interpretations of texts, not a validated ontology, and that qualification matters most when contributors share a source but not an aim.
The staffing note therefore marks a shared evidential anchor, not a common recommendation. Both contributors cite it because it bears on whether a second staff member is available; nothing in that citation shows that they assign the same weight to later hours, current service levels, or accessibility. Their agreement is about where a relevant datum may be found, not about what should be done with it. That is why the catalog records their use of the note as a relation to shared evidence, while their divergent priorities remain a distinct matter.
The distinction also keeps this link separate from those among Qh, Qs, and Qa. Qs, asking whether a second staff member is available, can enter a dependence condition for Qh, which asks whether later hours are feasible: extra staffing is stipulated as necessary for later hours, so without it the proposal cannot proceed. Yet even an affirmative answer to Qs does not settle whether later hours should be chosen, since staffing availability is one condition among the priorities a decision would still have to weigh. Similarly, “Can we enter without stairs?” and “Is step-free entry available?” may serve as paraphrases for the fixed entrance task, whereas a broader question about equitable access may introduce further requirements. These are different relations, not stronger and weaker versions of a single one.
The scope of the point is accordingly modest. A shared citation warrants attributing a common evidential source under the declared interpretation; it does not warrant inferring shared intent, endorsement of the same policy, or agreement about which action to take. Because the relations in this catalog are proposed interpretations rather than a validated ontology, editors should apply the distinction where the case supports it and leave uncertain cases explicit rather than forcing them into agreement or conflict.
26.5Topic proximity
Questions can sit close to one another in subject matter without sharing an answer, an argument, or even a vocabulary. A catalog that groups questions about service hours, staffing, and accessibility is making a navigational claim: someone consulting one of these questions may find the others worth a look. That claim is modest but useful. It tells an editor where to place neighboring entries, and it tells a reader where to browse next.
Take the question of later opening hours alongside the question of a second staff member. The two are neighbors because staffing bears directly on the feasibility of extending hours: if extra staffing is necessary for later hours, the staffing question is exactly the place to look before answering whether such hours can be offered. Accessibility questions form a second neighborhood. "Can we enter without stairs?" and "Is step-free entry available?" concern the same fixed entrance task, and a broader question about equitable access gathers further requirements around them. In each case, proximity tells the reader which questions deserve to be consulted together; it does not, by itself, tell the reader what the collected answers are worth.
The inferential step is therefore from shared subject matter to discovery value. That step is sound as navigation, and it is the basis for grouping and cross-referencing entries. Its limit is that the grouping records a proposed interpretation of the texts rather than a validated ontology. A contributor may reasonably judge that staffing belongs with service planning rather than with accessibility, and catalog relations are answers to such judgments, not measurements of them. The fixed entrance task supports the paraphrase reading; a broader access question introduces requirements that the narrower pair does not. Whatever grouping is adopted should therefore be declared alongside the interpretation that licenses it, so that a later editor can see why the neighbors were placed together.
Even when two questions are useful neighbors for discovery, that navigation relation does not establish answer equivalence. Qh asks whether later hours are feasible; Qs asks whether a second staff member is available. The two sit near one another because staffing bears on service hours. Yet the stipulated link runs only one way: extra staffing is necessary for later hours, but its availability does not decide whether later hours should be chosen. To claim more than topic proximity, one would have to compare the conditions under which an answer to each question would count as settled.
For Qh and Qs, that comparison separates a resource check from a service decision. Qs asks whether a specified person can be found; its answer concerns availability. Qh asks whether later hours are feasible and, implicitly, whether they are worth adopting. Even if a second staff member is shown to be available, that result supplies one necessary condition for later hours, not the recommendation itself. Costs, coverage needs, and competing priorities could still bear on Qh. Conversely, an argument for later hours could appeal to staffing, accessibility, or demand without presuming that any single staffing note decides the issue.
The same test limits the paraphrase claim about entrance wording. "Can we enter without stairs?" and "Is step-free entry available?" may be paraphrases for the fixed task of entering by the specified entrance, since their answer conditions coincide under that reading. A broader question about equitable access could introduce additional possible requirements—routes, assistance, or destinations beyond the entrance—so agreement on step-free entry would not settle it. Likewise, when Contributors A and B cite the same staffing note yet prefer different priorities, they share evidence without sharing a recommendation. Each relation therefore remains a proposed interpretation: proximity motivates the comparison, but only that further comparison shows how far the answers travel together.
26.6Uncertain relations
Because a relation describes texts under declared interpretations, a proposed link should travel with the interpretation that licenses it. When two readings remain possible, the catalog entry can state both: for example, "Can we enter without stairs?" and "Is step-free entry available?" are paraphrases of each other for a fixed entrance task, where the entrance and the requirement are settled. If the governing question widens to equitable access, additional possible requirements—signage, assistance, or other conditions—enter the scope, and the same pair may be only topic-proximate rather than equivalent. The entry therefore proposes paraphrase under the fixed task and records that the relation is uncertain once the scope widens.
The staffing example makes the same discipline concrete. Qs asks whether a second staff member is available, and extra staffing is stipulated necessary for later hours, so an answer to Qs bears on Qh. But availability does not decide whether later hours should be chosen: the choice also turns on priorities that Qs does not settle. The link is thus partial dependence, not paraphrase and not conflict. When Contributor A and Contributor B cite the same staffing note yet prefer different priorities, their relation is shared evidence only; shared recommendation is a distinct claim that the texts do not support.
Attaching the qualification keeps the proposed relation revisable without forcing a confident classification where the text underdetermines one. It also prevents one link from silently doing the work of another: dependence on an answer is not agreement about a recommendation, and shared evidence is not shared conclusion. What the catalog records is an interpretation proposed on stated grounds, with the alternative reading left open for later adjudication.
An uncertainty statement attached to a proposed relation is most useful when it names what remains unresolved. Take the staffing and hours pair. In the stipulated example, extra staffing is necessary for later hours, and Qs asks whether a second staff member is available. One might therefore propose that Qs is a subquestion of Qh, or instead that the two merely share evidence, since staffing availability bears on feasibility. A bare score on the relation cannot tell these readings apart. Naming the scope of the doubt does. If the unresolved item is the condition linking staffing to later hours, the doubt concerns dependence; if it is whether availability also bears on the decision to adopt later hours, the doubt concerns a question the stipulation already separates from feasibility.
The same discipline fixes the scope of an application. "Can we enter without stairs?" and "Is step-free entry available?" may count as paraphrases for the fixed entrance task, where the requirement is only that the entrance be usable without steps. For a broader question about equitable access, additional requirements may apply. Here the unresolved condition is the task boundary itself, not the wording of the two questions. Naming that condition keeps the paraphrase claim local and stops it from carrying over silently to the broader question.
Some relations are not uncertain at all. Contributors A and B cite the same staffing note, so the shared-evidence relation is clear; their different priorities are equally clear, and neither fact entails a shared recommendation. Uncertainty attaches where declared interpretations diverge, not to every link in the catalog.
The gain is limited but practical: a named referent or condition tells a contributor what would have to be fixed before the relation can be settled, without settling it and without adding a new relation type. Only where the same unresolved difference recurs is a further vocabulary distinction warranted.
26.7An extensible relation vocabulary
Naming the unresolved referent or condition is more useful than attaching a bare uncertainty score, but even a named relation remains an interpretation. That is enough to justify a modest vocabulary, provided each label answers a question a reader could actually ask. The vocabulary need not settle what every relation ultimately means; it needs to record what the catalog asserts under a declared interpretation, so that someone can ask, for example, whether two questions share evidence or whether one makes another feasible, and check what the claim rests on.
The catalog case shows why a few distinctions earn their place. Qh asks whether later hours are feasible, Qs whether a second staff member is available, and Qa whether an entrance can be used without steps. Extra staffing is stipulated necessary for later hours, so Qs bears on the feasibility of Qh; yet staffing availability does not decide whether later hours should be chosen, so a link of dependence or support must not be recorded as agreement with a recommendation. Similarly, contributors A and B cite the same staffing note while preferring different priorities: shared evidence and shared recommendation are different relations, and collapsing them would misrepresent both. For the fixed entrance task, "Can we enter without stairs?" and "Is step-free entry available?" may be recorded as paraphrases, whereas a broader question about equitable access may add requirements neither phrasing covers. Whether a paraphrase claim holds depends on the task and interpretation in force.
A small vocabulary also answers the practical worry that a complex ontology breeds disagreement and burdens editors. Editors are not asked to discover the correct relation once and for all; they record a proposed relation, its declared interpretation, and any condition under which it holds. If the conditions cannot be stated, the link can remain unnamed rather than forced into a category. Extensibility means new labels may be added when existing ones cannot express a distinction readers need, not that every cataloged pair must receive a richer label. The limit is mutual: labels that answer no reader question add nothing, and distinctions without a stable interpretation merely relocate disagreement.
The catalog's three questions make the test concrete. Qh asks whether later hours are feasible, Qs asks whether a second staff member is available, and Qa asks whether an entrance can be used without steps. In this stipulated example, extra staffing is necessary for later hours, so Qs bears a dependence relation to Qh. Yet availability of the second staff member does not decide whether later hours should be chosen: a feasibility condition is not a recommendation. A label that recorded only that the questions were "related" would obscure exactly the distinction a reader needs.
The same test sorts evidence from agreement. Contributors A and B cite the same staffing note but prefer different priorities. Their questions share evidence without sharing a recommendation. Treating one relation as the other would silently convert common grounds for inquiry into consensus about what to do.
Paraphrase is equally conditional. "Can we enter without stairs?" and "Is step-free entry available?" may count as paraphrases for the fixed entrance task, where the entrance is specified and the requirement is one and the same. A broader question about equitable access can carry additional possible requirements, so these two formulations need not be paraphrases of it. The paraphrase relation holds only relative to a declared task and interpretation.
From these cases, the inference is narrow but useful: a new label earns its maintenance cost when it separates relations that answer different reader questions—dependence from warrant, shared evidence from shared recommendation, task-relative paraphrase from broader sufficiency. The limit is equally clear. A larger taxonomy is not automatically a better one. Relations here are proposed interpretations of texts under declared readings, not a validated ontology, and uncertain categorization burdens editors. So the vocabulary should stay small and extensible: add a label only when it reliably preserves a distinction readers actually need, and merge or drop labels that cannot be applied consistently within the declared scope.