(Semantically) frames describe classes of situations. Inheritance has a special place among the frame relations. It is to be interpreted as a subtype or “is-a” relation between frame classes. This constrains the Child frame to have all of the properties of the Parent frame. Although it is difficult to generalize across all of the relations, it is usually true that an instance of a Sub frame implies the existence of an instance of a Super frame. In the case of a Theft, which inherits from Committing crime, an instance of Theft is obviously an instance of Committing crime. For the Precedes relation, however, this is not exactly true. For the Subframe relation, the existence of a Subframe instance does imply the relevance of a Complex frame instance, but the reverse is not true. So, for example, if there is an instance of the Sentencing frame, then we can instantiate an instance of the Criminal process frame. We can then also instantiate all of the subframes of Criminal process which must precede Sentencing, including Trial, Arraignment, etc., but we cannot instantiate the Appeal subframe of Criminal process which follows Sentencing. xsd:string