I can't remember where, maybe in one of Rich's examples, I thought I saw the basisOfRecord for a taxonName designated as: "NomenclaturalAct". I thought that was both correct and precise. Similarly, I think the basis of a taxon record should be a "TaxonomicAct", i.e., a published description or reclassification.
Well...."NomenclaturalAct" is certainly in my vocabulary; but the overarching term I use (and likely would have used in my posted examples) is "TaxonNameUsage". Anytime a human uses a taxon name (and, really: who else besides humans use taxon names?), it's a TaxonNameUsage instance. Taken to the extreme, this includes casual/ephemeral conversations and other such utterances. However, in the realm of biodiversity informatics, I generally confine it to "documented" TaxonNameUsage instances. Although "documented" can be very broadly defined (including, e.g., correspondence, field notes, specimen labels and other single-copy documents), in our world it is largely dominated by publications and publication-like documentation sources.
TaxonNameUsage instances can "carry" things like Nomenclatural Acts and Taxon Concept circumscriptions, but I'm not sure if, ontologically speaking, it's appropriate to think of these as subtypes. They are certainly *not* mutually exclusive -- indeed, essentially every TaxonNameUsage that contains a nomenclatural act also represents a taxon concept/circumscription. However, there are many, many, many TNUs that represent Taxon Concept circumscriptions, but do not carry Nomenclatural Acts. And then there are TNUs that are neither: things like published type catalogs which certainly "use" taxon names (hence: TNU), but neither carry a Nomenclatural Act nor imply, assert or represent a Taxon Concept.
Anyway....I'm not entirely sure I would populate basisOfRecord with any of these terms for records representing recordClass=Taxon. But maybe I would -- I don't know. In part, I guess, it depends on where this particular discussion ends up.
Aloha, Rich
Richard L. Pyle, PhD Database Coordinator for Natural Sciences and Associate Zoologist in Ichthyology Department of Natural Sciences, Bishop Museum 1525 Bernice St., Honolulu, HI 96817 Ph: (808)848-4115, Fax: (808)847-8252 email: deepreef@bishopmuseum.org http://hbs.bishopmuseum.org/staff/pylerichard.html