GMEOW Narrative Module

• IRI: https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/slices/narrative
• Tier: extension
• Group: extensions

What This Slice Covers

This slice owns 91 terms and contributes 6 mapping or projection rows. Use it when its terms match the native fact you want to preserve; use the linkage tables to see how those facts leave GMEOW for consumer vocabularies.

Dependencies

• gmeow:slices/documents
• gmeow:slices/events
• gmeow:slices/kernel
• gmeow:slices/observations
• gmeow:slices/places
• gmeow:slices/provenance

Consumers

• Narrative frames and myth tellings for the deception slice's worked examples and creative works. The narrative interior (arc samples as Observations over narrative positions, scoped roles, and motifs riding the narration seam) serves the lbox foundation-docs importer (design context: 16,445 arc samples, 779 role links, 16,002 tags / 669 concepts) ahead of the narrative consumer child.

Local Map

Examples

Flashback

• Source: slices/extensions/narrative/examples/flashback.ttl
• GMEOW terms: gmeow:Axis, gmeow:CreativeWork, gmeow:Event, gmeow:NarrativePosition, gmeow:NarrativeReferenceFrame, gmeow:NarrativeTimeFrame, gmeow:atNarrativePosition, gmeow:axisDiscourseTime, gmeow:axisStoryTime, gmeow:determinacyDisputed
• External prefixes: xsd

# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2026 Blackcat Informatics® Inc. <paudley@blackcatinformatics.ca>
# SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0
#
# Worked example: a flashback IS a disagreement between two time frames (,
# , P9). Narrative time has two co-equal axes, neither the truth of the other:
# DISCOURSE time (syuzhet — the order of telling, owned by the telling work) and
# STORY time (fabula — the order of happening, owned by a continuity). Each is a
# gmeow:NarrativeTimeFrame (a ReferenceFrame). The same diegetic event carries a
# gmeow:NarrativePosition in EACH frame; when its discourse ordinal and story
# ordinal disagree, that disagreement is precisely the flashback — made queryable
# rather than contradictory. Here the protagonist's birth happens first in the
# story (ordinal 0) but is told only in chapter 5 (discourse ordinal 5).
@prefix gmeow: <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/> .
@prefix ex:    <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/examples/narrative/> .
@prefix rdfs:  <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .
@prefix xsd:   <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> .

# --- The telling work and the continuity it narrates.
ex:novel a gmeow:CreativeWork ; gmeow:title "The Lighthouse at World's End"@en .

# Narrative frames are ReferenceFrames; they share one ordinal axis (1-D, scalar).
ex:narrativeOrder a gmeow:Axis ; rdfs:label "narrative ordinal"@en .

# --- The continuity (story world) — a NarrativeReferenceFrame.
ex:canon a gmeow:NarrativeReferenceFrame ;
    rdfs:label          "Lighthouse Saga continuity"@en ;
    gmeow:frameRealm    gmeow:frameRealmNarrative ;
    gmeow:hasAxis       ex:narrativeOrder ;
    gmeow:dimensionCount "1"^^xsd:nonNegativeInteger ;
    gmeow:frameKind     gmeow:frameKindNarrative ;
    gmeow:requiresHost  false ;
    gmeow:determinacyModel gmeow:determinacyDisputed .

# --- DISCOURSE-time frame: the order of telling, owned by the novel.
ex:discourseFrame a gmeow:NarrativeTimeFrame ;
    rdfs:label           "telling order of the novel"@en ;
    gmeow:narrativeTimeAxis gmeow:axisDiscourseTime ;
    gmeow:discourseTimeOf ex:novel ;
    gmeow:frameRealm     gmeow:frameRealmNarrative ;
    gmeow:hasAxis        ex:narrativeOrder ;
    gmeow:dimensionCount "1"^^xsd:nonNegativeInteger ;
    gmeow:frameKind      gmeow:frameKindNarrative ;
    gmeow:requiresHost   false ;
    gmeow:determinacyModel gmeow:determinacyDisputed .

# --- STORY-time frame: the order of happening, owned by the continuity.
ex:storyFrame a gmeow:NarrativeTimeFrame ;
    rdfs:label           "in-universe chronology"@en ;
    gmeow:narrativeTimeAxis gmeow:axisStoryTime ;
    gmeow:storyTimeOf    ex:canon ;
    gmeow:frameRealm     gmeow:frameRealmNarrative ;
    gmeow:hasAxis        ex:narrativeOrder ;
    gmeow:dimensionCount "1"^^xsd:nonNegativeInteger ;
    gmeow:frameKind      gmeow:frameKindNarrative ;
    gmeow:requiresHost   false ;
    gmeow:determinacyModel gmeow:determinacyDisputed .

# --- The diegetic event, placed in BOTH frames — the disagreement is the flashback.
ex:protagonistBirth a gmeow:Event ;
    rdfs:label            "the protagonist's birth"@en ;
    gmeow:eventType       gmeow:eventTypeBirth ;
    gmeow:atNarrativePosition ex:posTold , ex:posHappened .

# Told late: chapter 5 (discourse ordinal 5).
ex:posTold a gmeow:NarrativePosition ;
    gmeow:positionFrame   ex:discourseFrame ;
    gmeow:positionOrdinal "5"^^xsd:integer ;
    gmeow:positionLabel   "Chapter 5 (flashback)" .

# Happened first: story ordinal 0.
ex:posHappened a gmeow:NarrativePosition ;
    gmeow:positionFrame   ex:storyFrame ;
    gmeow:positionOrdinal "0"^^xsd:integer ;
    gmeow:positionLabel   "Year 0 — the beginning of the saga" .

Terms

Classes

Properties

Individuals

Linkages

• Rows: 6
• Projection profiles: -
• External vocabularies: schema, wd

Guide

Narrative — canon as a reference frame, the text as a projection of the story

Slice: https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/slices/narrative · tier: extension In-universe facts hold accordingTo a frame; the chapter sequence is the syuzhet projection of frame-relative story content.

A narrative is two things GMEOW keeps rigorously apart. A canon is a coordinate system: locations, dates, and events inside the Harry Potter world, Earth-616, or the Star Wars Legends split are positioned relative to a gmeow:NarrativeReferenceFrame, which is a gmeow:ReferenceFrame (the Location-as-reference-frame design) living in the gmeow:frameRealmNarrative defined by the places slice. The frame functionally serves as the standpoint under which in-universe claims hold true, without subclassing gmeow:Standpoint — gUFO's MixIden enforces exactly-one-Kind inheritance, so the frame is the canon and gmeow:accordingTo does the standpoint work. Competing continuities are separate frames that may sharpen one another; no single canon wins (Principle 9), variants are linked by gmeow:counterpartOf and never merged (Principle 5), and a retcon is a frame-scoped claim revision preserved by gmeow:supersedes + gmeow:displayable false (Principle 10), never a deletion.

The second thing is the text, and the load-bearing doctrine of this slice is that the text is not the story. A gmeow:CreativeWork (BookRelease, SerialInstallment) is an out-of-universe, rights-bearing artifact that sources, witnesses, or revises a frame — it is never the canon itself. Story content is frame-relative; the chapter sequence is a syuzhet projection of it; the narration seam relates the two without confusing them; and every interpretive reading — what the protagonist is, what a character felt in chapter 31, whether a string is a motif — is a vantage-indexed claim coexisting with its rivals (Principle 9). The sections below build that stance from frame to seam to interior.

Frames, sourcing, and myth

gmeow:NarrativeReferenceFrame

The canon, continuity, or narrative realm — a gmeow:ReferenceFrame SubKind that coordinatizes in-universe locations, dates, and events and serves as the standpoint for in-universe claims. Ordinary GMEOW entities (Person, Place, Event) carry claims gmeow:accordingTo it; cross-continuity variants link by gmeow:counterpartOf.

gmeow:sourceFor · gmeow:NarrativeFrameLink

gmeow:sourceFor (⊑ gmeow:contributesToFrame) relates a creative work to the frame it sources, witnesses, or revises — the out-of-universe → in-universe edge. Frame-to-frame relations (canon, alternate continuity, expanded universe, fanon, crossover, adaptation — the open gmeow:NarrativeFrameRelation vocabulary) ride the flat shortcuts gmeow:hasNarrativeFrameRelation / gmeow:relatesToFrame; promote to the reified gmeow:NarrativeFrameLink (source × target × relation) when provenance, confidence, or scope must be a node.

gmeow:Myth

A socially-sustained narrative whose currency is independent of its truth-value — a founding myth, an urban legend, a debunked claim that persists (the design, Deception design context). GMEOW asserts no truth verdict (Principle 1); in-myth claims are scoped gmeow:accordingTo the gmeow:mythFrame. Tellings attach via gmeow:hasMythTelling, spread along gmeow:propagatesFrom (⊑ prov:wasDerivedFrom, reusing the lineage spine — Principle 4), and the propagating agent bears gmeow:roleDupe or gmeow:roleDeceiver (the deception bridge).

Narrative time (narrative-position axis, design context)

The text is not the story: the chapter sequence is the syuzhet projection of frame-relative story content. Two kinds of NarrativeTimeFrame (each a ReferenceFrame under frameRealmNarrative) coordinatize narrative position:

• discourse time (axisDiscourseTime, syuzhet) — the order of telling; owned by the telling work via discourseTimeOf (a re-segmented edition is a different frame);
• story time (axisStoryTime, fabula) — the order of happening in-universe; owned by a NarrativeReferenceFrame via storyTimeOf (a continuity can reorder it — a retcon is a frame-scoped remapping, preserved by suppression).

gmeow:NarrativePosition

NarrativePosition is the narrative analogue of SpatialCoordinates: frame (mandatory — no bare chapter indices), ordinal, label, or both. atNarrativePosition is the single domain-free anchor that the depiction seam (narration seam), arc samples (arc samples), and motif occurrences (motifs) all reuse — deliberately non-functional, because one diegetic event holding positions in both frames whose orders disagree is the flashback, queryable instead of contradictory (Principle 9).

In-universe Allen relations are claims accordingTo the narrative frame via the statement layer, never global facts. Position comparison, ordering, and discourse↔story reconciliation are solver-layer (Principle 12). A reified discourse↔story mapping construct is deliberately deferred to coordinate with the music extension's TimeMapping (music design) — one frame-mapping idiom in the repo, not two.

The narration seam (narration seam, design context)

NOnt's reference function between text and story — neither mereology nor participation: "chapter 31 narrates event E; character C is narrated in segment S."

gmeow:narrates · gmeow:narratedIn

• Flat by default: narrates (segment → diegetic content) and narratedIn (content → segment; Wikidata P1441's edge — SSSOM row deferred to the alignment window), both ⊑ narrationLink (domain- and range-free ancestor for media-specific seams: panel, shot, verse). No owl:inverseOf between the orientations — EL-clean; query both (the connectsTo convention).

gmeow:NarrationUsage · gmeow:NarrationMode

• Reify with a reason: NarrationUsage (the NameUsage/DepictionUsage idiom) = segment × subject × mode(s), SHACL-required mode — the modeless case is the flat shortcut. It pairs with the flat narrates via gmeow:pairsWith. NarrationMode is open: direct, mentioned, flashback (the narrative-position axis two-axes disagreement as a mode), dream, hypothetical, unreliable (the boundary — narrator-level held ≠ projected; documented bridge, no axiom coupling).
• Naming note: gmeow:depicts belongs to the image spine (MediaObject → Entity, ⊑ isAbout, documents module) and isAbout's Entity range cannot carry diegetic events (occurrents) — hence the separate, range-free narration family.
• The efficiency doctrine, codified: the foundation corpus carries 38,413 character-segment links + 23,962 narrated events + 12,354 appearances. Budget arithmetic: flat ≈ 1 quad/link; reified ≈ 6–8 statements/link; full reification ≈ 1.5–2M statements for one corpus. Flat is the default; silent full reification is a defect, not thoroughness. The consumer child (narrative consumer child) gates the flat/reified split against a declared budget.

Diegetic events stay ordinary gmeow:Events claims-scoped accordingTo their frame; the events module's Participation machinery is reused untouched for who-did-what in the story.

The narrative interior (arc samples / scoped roles / motifs, design context)

gmeow:ArcSample

• Arc samples (arc samples) — the music PitchTrajectory move: an arc is sampled control points in a frame, not prose. ArcSample ⊑ Observation reads {subject × NarrativePosition (narrative-position axis) × state-by-IRI × vantage}; the state is a soft cross-slice reference (affect EmotionType when loaded, EmotionML category otherwise — IRI, never dependency, P16). The existing CharacterArc is the integrating whole (arcSample ⊑ hasPart, purely additive); two analyzers disagreeing at one position are two coexisting cells, surfaced — never resolved — by narrative-arc-trajectory.rq (the syuzhet-CSV primitive).

gmeow:RoleInNarrative · gmeow:hasNarrativeRole

• Roles (scoped roles) — a narratological role is a function relative to a scope, never a property of the character: RoleInNarrative = bearer × NarrativeScope (named umbrella grafted over CreativeWork / ContentSegment / NarrativeReferenceFrame, extension-side — the Rule ⊑ Norm direction) × open NarrativeRole value. The flat shortcut hasNarrativeRole pairs with the relator via gmeow:pairsWith. Protagonist of the trilogy, of one book, of one chapter are different claims; ensemble works carry coexisting protagonist relators and no primaryProtagonist exists or ever will (P9). Character-as-exemplar composes from the rubrics facility's exemplarSubject with zero new machinery.

gmeow:Motif · gmeow:motifOccursIn

• Motifs (motifs) — thematic tags with identity: Motif ⊑ SocialObject with aliases (names module), an open MotifKind, and occurrences riding the narration seam (motifOccursIn ⊑ narratedIn, pairing with NarrationUsage via gmeow:pairsWith and inheriting the narration seam flat-by-default efficiency discipline). Cross-work identity goes through counterpartOf or a registry anchor (Thompson Motif Index / ATU / DBTropes — alignment window), never string equality. Tag vs Motif boundary: tags are uncurated labels (tags module); promote to Motif when recurrence and identity emerge — the promotion is an Activity with provenance, and the corpus heuristic (concepts → always; thematic_tags → on recurrence + curator confirmation) gates in the narrative consumer child.

Solver layer & deferred alignment

Position comparison, discourse↔story reconciliation, arc-trajectory CSVs, and motif recurrence analysis are all solver-layer (Principle 12); the slice carries the frames, positions, and seams those queries read. Alignment is by reference — Wikidata P1441 for the narration seam, the Thompson Motif Index / ATU / DBTropes for motifs — with SSSOM rows and the reified discourse↔story TimeMapping (shared with the music extension music design) both deferred to the alignment window so the repo grows one frame-mapping idiom, not two. No axiom here references a deception-slice or norms-slice IRI: the unreliable-narration boundary and the NarrativeScope graft are documented bridges and extension-side grafts (P16), never core edits.

Dependencies

Depends on kernel, documents (CreativeWork, ContentSegment, the image spine), places (ReferenceFrame and gmeow:frameRealmNarrative), provenance (the propagation spine), observations (ArcSample ⊑ Observation), and events (diegetic events and Participation). Consumed by the deception slice's worked examples and by the lbox foundation-docs importer (design context: 16,445 arc samples, 779 role links, 16,002 tags / 669 concepts) ahead of the narrative consumer child consumer child.