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Re: [ontac-dev] Type vs. Class et al.

To: ONTAC Taxonomy-Ontology Development Discussion <ontac-dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "John F. Sowa" <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 11:58:01 -0500
Message-id: <43CE7399.10000@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Pat,    (01)

Thanks for helping us get rid of the giant cc list.    (02)

Now some comments on terminology:    (03)

 > [PC] modestly accepting what I believe is a reference
 > to my frequent use of the term "concept", please understand
 > that I fully sympathize with Barry's emphasis on the need
 > to distinguish between real things in the world and the
 > concepts people have of them and the terms by which we refer
 > to them.    (04)

Barry and I are both happy with the word "type", but I realize
that there are many different, but related kinds of types.
In formal definitions, I use the unadorned word "type", but in
more informal discussions, I adopt the common English approach of
concatenating two related words, as in "hound dog" or "soda pop".    (05)

For example, one could say "concept type" or "relation type" or
"concept and relation types".  Purists can ignore the modifiers,
but they may help clarify the topic under discussion.    (06)

 > I need a term that means "a class or relation or function or instance
 > or metaclass or function term or axiom or procedural rule or attached
 > method or any other element that we would want to put into an ontology
 > that represents some element of meaning, as distinct from the actual
 > things in the world to which they refer and as distinct from the
 > specific manner in which they happen to be represented."  or "some
 > abstract entity which is represented by symbols in our ontologies,
 > is intended to correspond in structure to some idea people have about
 > something or other, and refers to something other than itself".    (07)

I believe that the word "type" could be used for all the categories
in the ontology and "instance" for anything of a given type.
If necessary, we could even formalize the terms "concept type" and
"relation type" for human readability.    (08)

> I think this is close to what is usually intended by references to
> Ogden's "meaning triangle":
> 
> 
>                      Concept
>                       /   \
>                      /     \
>                     /       \
>           Symbol/Term  ---  Referent/Thing/Real-world Object
> 
> Does anyone else have a candidate for a general term we should use to
> refer to any of the constituent elements of our ontologies?    (09)

Suggestions:  "symbol" is a good replacement for "symbol", and
it's general enough to include "word" or "term" as special cases.    (010)

For "Concept", I would suggest "type" or "concept type", and
for the lower right corner, I would suggest two options:    (011)

   1. "Referent of the symbol" when focusing on the bottom line.    (012)

   2. "Instance of the type" when focusing on the right side.    (013)

John    (014)


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