BlankLucian wrote: (01)
''Prof. Christiane Fellbaum is the current Principal Investigator (PI) on
the WordNet project (Prof. George Miller who started WordNet is old enough
that I had him as an instructor for a General Education course while an
undergraduate, so is no longer working full time). She makes the following
distinction between WordNet and other Ontologies. WordNet is a lexical
ontology.'' (02)
Lucian, (03)
WordNet is a very valuable lexical resource and maybe one of the most
comprehensive semantic taxonomies of words; you may be proud with the
involvement with this great project much exceeding all the extant ''upper
ontologies''.
It is very sad that Prof. George Miller can't care for his brainchild; for
now I see the reason why WordNet 2.1 classification is not so ontologically
consistent as the previous edition. In the current version, it needs an
essential reclassification according to the nature of world entities and
relations, i.e., an adequate mapping to the ontological classes. This is
what has been done in USECS (Universal Standard Entity Classification
System), which you can download from the website, http://www.eis.com.cy.
Below is the open (dynamic, not static) framework of topmost classes of
things and relationships rationally arranging the WordNet's top semantic
types as well as the upper ontologies' basic classes: (04)
SUBSTANCE, substrate, stuff: the class of substances (objects, material or
nonmaterial, spatial or non-spatial, physical or mental, concrete or
abstract) (05)
WordNet 2.0: entity {thing; causal agent or cause; substance or matter;
object or physical object (whole or unit, natural object, living or animate
thing (plant, flora; animal, fauna; person, human being)); artifact or
artifact)}, group or grouping, psychological feature {cognition, knowledge
(mind, head, brain, psyche or nous, content or mental object, lexis,
vocabulary, information, place, and public knowledge, history)}, abstraction
(set);
WordNet 2.1: entity {physical entity (thing; object, physical object;
substance, matter; causal agent), abstract entity (group, grouping; set)}; (06)
Roget’s Thesaurus: matter;
EuroWordNet: 1st order entity (origin, form, composition, function);
EDR: subject or human (person, animal, body or group, supernatural being),
matter (thing or concrete object, objective subject);
SUMO: physical object (self-connected object, collection, agent, region),
abstract object (set or class, graph);
CYC: individual (spatial thing), mathematical or computational thing (set or
collection), groups, parts of objects, composition of substances, agents,
organizations, actors, materials, devices, construction, food, clothing);
DOLCE: aggregate (amount of matter, arbitrary collection), object (physical
object, mental object, social object), feature (relevant part, place)};
Sowa: objects;
Knowledge Machine Component Library: entities (things, or objects);
WebKB-2: entities (spatial objects and non-spatial objects);
OWL: classes and individuals (07)
STATE, the class of properties, qualities, and quantities (08)
WordNet 2.0: state, phenomenon (state of matter), abstraction (attribute
(property, quality, shape or form), quantity and amount or measure or
quantum), possession, psychological feature (cognition, knowledge (ability,
inability, attitude);
WordNet 2.1: abstract entity {attribute (state; quality, property; shape,
form; human nature, character, personality); measure, quantity, amount}; (09)
Roget’s Thesaurus: quantity, number;
EuroWordNet: 2nd order entity (static situation and situation component,
condition, existence, quantity);
EDR: event/occurrence (condition/state);
SUMO: abstract object (quantity, attribute, internal);
CYC: intangible individual (static situation, attribute value);
DOLCE: quality (color, size, shape, smell), quality region (qualia),
occurrence (state)
KM Component Library: properties, states;
OWL: properties (monadic) (010)
CHANGE, the class of actions, activities, and processes (011)
WordNet: event (happening, occurrence or natural event), phenomenon (natural
phenomenon, consequence or effect, process), act, human action or human
activity, abstraction (relation, change), psychological feature (cognition,
knowledge, process; feeling; motive, motivation or need);
WordNet 2.1: entity {physical entity (cause; process, physical process),
abstract entity (psychological feature (cognition, knowledge; motivation,
motive, need; event)}; (012)
Roget’s Thesaurus: change;
EuroWordNet: 2nd order entity (situation type, dynamic, situation component,
cause, experience);
EDR: event or occurrence (phenomenon, action or deed, movement, change in
state or change in condition);
Sowa: processes;
SUMO: physical process (internal change, intentional change, dual object
change, shape change, motion);
CYC: partially intangible (event), doing, transformations, changes of state,
transfer of possession, movement, emotion, perception, waves;
DOLCE: occurrence (dynamic events, processes and accomplishments);
KM Component Library: events (actions and processes) (013)
RELATION, the class of relations (014)
WordNet 2.0: abstraction (relation, time, space), state (relationship,
relationship);
WordNet 2.1: entity {abstract entity (relation; communication; attribute
(time, space, or infinite, temporal property)}; (015)
Roget’s Thesaurus: relation, causation, order, time, space
EuroWordNet: 2nd order entity (situation type, static, relation, situation
component, communication);
EDR: location, locale, place, time;
SUMO: abstract object (relation, proposition, attribute, relational);
CYC: mathematical object (relation, formal), temporal relations (times and
dates), spatial relations;
DOLCE: quality (position and place, time interval), quality region (space,
time);
KM Component Library: entity (object)-to-entity (object) relations,
event-to-event relations, event-to-object relations;
WebKB-2: entity (object)-to-entity(object) relations;
OWL: set-theoretical properties (relations) (016)
Wish for the WordNet team to keep up the good work.
Azamat Abdoullaev
EIS Ltd (017)
----- Original Message -----
From: Lucian Russell
To: Ontac Forum for Future Directions and Terminologies
Sent: Friday, December 30, 2005 6:13 PM
Subject: Re:[ontac-forum] Future directions for ontologies and terminologies (018)
Static vs. Dynamic Queries (019)
Hello from a former lurker. My name is Lucian Russell and my specialty is
applying the principles of uncertain reasoning to data, all kinds. I have
been in the computer science field for several decades. (020)
One of the decisions one needs to make about an upper Ontology is whether it
is needed at all. If the answer is “yes” then the choice is to create a
single upper Ontology that categorizes all human knowledge into a small
number of categories. This is by definition static. The other alternative is
to have a large number of categories which can be combined on the fly; this
is by definition dynamic. This decision entails recognizing the form it
would take. (021)
This initial submission will lay out one issue: the need or not for concept
lexicalization for the highest level of a static Ontology. As John Sowa
cited the philosopher Aristotle’s timeless insight, I will cite the timeless
insight of Gloria Estphan who in the 1980s sang the hit “The Words Get in
the Way”. (022)
First off, let me recommend to those who know of WordNet but have never read
the book to do so, especially Chapter 1 (nouns) and Chapter 3 (verbs);
subsequently read Chapter 2 (adjectives and adverbs) and re-read the two
surrounding chapters. To those who have read the book, congratulations for
being so well organized and prescient. For those not following WordNet it is
up to Release 2.1 and is completing a mapping of words in explanations to
senses in WordNet. This latter work will be finished up in April. The
current release is available for downloading; it is also on-line for any
single word. (023)
Prof. Christiane Fellbaum is the current Principal Investigator (PI) on the
WordNet project (Prof. George Miller who started WordNet is old enough that
I had him as an instructor for a General Education course while an
undergraduate, so is no longer working full time). She makes the following
distinction between WordNet and other Ontologies. WordNet is a lexical
ontology. That means that it is based on words in the English Language,
though some noun phrases are also included (the words are separated by the
underscore character). Although this is generally true, even WordNet
contains some non-lexicalized nodes, which brings me to the key question: (024)
1. Should a class name in an Ontology, especially an upper level class, be
restricted to a word or phrase? (025)
It would seem that there is something to be said on both sides of this
issue. (026)
On the “no” side, for example, WordNet shows that in English verbs there are
two senses of the verb “move”. One is movement with a translation in space
and one is movement without this change in special position (e.g. spinning).
The two senses are not lexicalized but are rather distinct senses of a word
with a given spelling (homograph). (027)
On the “yes side” if for a static Ontology there is a single word (or a well
known noun phrase) that is used for the name of a class then we have a sound
basis for looking at sub-classes and the class membership of instances. In
this case we say that the concept is lexicalized. (028)
A further “yes” argument is that if a concept in the Ontology is not
lexicalized then we have to create a name for that concept’s class. But to
name it is not to claim it: we cannot claim that our work is done just
because we have stung two or more words together. Lacking a linguistic
history of our new phase we need to either (1) enumerate the subclasses (in
set theory an extensional description) or (2) define a set of inclusion
rules (in set theory an intensional description). (029)
Of course we could lexicalize the concept by taking a word from another
language that does lexicalize the concept, but if the Ontology is meant for
English speakers that new word still needs to be explained to them (the same
is true for any language whose words are used to name concepts). (030)
In practice the class membership criteria for instances of an Ontology are
specified by a set of constraint rules on property values. Using Descriptive
Logic one must be able to reason about the assertion “if X is a class and x
in an instance of a thing with property values (a1, a2 …..an) then x is a
member of the class X “. The answers are “Yes” and “No”. So for an Ontology
a non-lexical class name is really a substitute for a mathematical
description. (031)
Static Ontologies, therefore, should probably be ones that primarily use
lexicalized concepts in classes. That being the case, it would seem that the
logical consequence is that for the top Ontological categories one should
use WordNet’s “beginning names” unless there was a REALLY good reason not to
do so. (032)
Some researchers in Artificial Intelligence claim they have a better top
level Ontology, and maybe they are justified. However, WordNet has some 15
years behind it, so the set-descriptions of the any different concepts
should be carefully spelled out so that we may judge. (033)
In the end we can choose what we want; we just should be sure of why we made
the choices and know the consequences. (034)
If I have repeated well worn arguments, I will take my deserved newbie lumps
and be suitable chastened :-) (035)
Lucian Russell, PhD
___________________________
Lucian Russell, PhD
Sr. Architect - Principal
Federal Consulting Practice
Computer Sciences Corporation
3110 Fairview Park Drive
Falls Church VA, 22042
Ph: (703)-645-5237
Fax: (703)-645-5233
Cell:(703)-340-5807 (036)
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