title: Identifying Functional Dependencies
body: <p>I have the following schema in first normal form (1NF) - that is all cells contain atomic values:</p>
  
  <pre><code>ClientRental (clientNo, propertyNo, clientName, propertyAddress, rent, 
                rentStart, rentFinish, ownerNo, ownerName)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The general outline is that clients can rent many properties from a letting agents. Each property has one owner. For those of you familiar with the book, it is an example extracted from Database Systems by Connolly &amp; Begg.</p>
  
  <p>I am trying to identify the functional dependencies -> candidate keys, partial dependencies and transitive dependencies etc</p>
  
  <p>I am following a textbook but there suggestions are somewhat poorly explained. Could someone explain to me whether or not my suggestions are correct:</p>
  
  <pre><code>FD1 -&gt; clientNo -&gt; clientName
  FD2 -&gt; propertyNo -&gt; propertyAddress, rent, ownerNo, ownerName
  FD3 -&gt; ownerNo -&gt; ownerName
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>There are definitely more functional dependencies that I have missed, but my lack of experience is preventing me from identifying them. Obviously I cannot determine the partial dependencies because I haven't yet allocated a primary key for the above relation/schema. </p>
  
  <p>Can somebody help me to identify the other functional dependencies...I am not clear what determines something as a transitive dependency either...</p>
  
  <p>Please let me know if anything requires more clarification..</p>
  
  <p>EDIT For 3NF:</p>
  
  <p>My 3NF Relations:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Client {clientNo(PK), clientName}
  Owner {ownerNo(PK), ownerName}
  Property {propertyNo (PK), propertyAddress, rent}
  ClientRental {clientNo(PK), propertyNo(PK), rentStart, rentFinish, ownerNo(FK)}
  </code></pre>