SUO: RE: RE: CG: RE: Question about CLCE
Dear Rich,
In ISO 15926 we have specifically separated concepts from the
words/terms used to express them. Concepts are identified typically
by just a number. Words and terms are simply identified as strings,
and then relationships defined that say which communities use which
terms/words for which concepts.
If you want to represent how the world works, you have to model it
that way. There is no free lunch.
Matthew West
Business Information Architect - Supply Chain Management
Shell Information Technology International Limited
Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 20 7934 4490 Mobile: +44 7796 336538
Email: matthew.west@shell.com
Internet: http://www.shell.com
http://www.matthew-west.org.uk
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Cooper [mailto:rich@valutech.com]
> Sent: 10 March 2004 17:39
> To: cg@cs.uah.edu
> Cc: standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org; Norbert E. Fuchs; rolfs;
> doug@site.uottawa.ca
> Subject: SUO: RE: CG: RE: Question about CLCE
>
>
>
> John F. Sowa wrote
> > Rich,
> >
> > Every knowledge representation language, every
> > programming language, and every artificial language
> > for design, specification, or whatever requires
> > monosemy -- one and only one meaning for each
> > word. Since CLCE is designed to map to those
> > languages, there is no way that it can do so
> > in a simple, convenient way without requiring
> > every word to have a unique meaning.
>
> As the parse continues, ultimately one meaning must
> be singled out. But there are languages that support
> some degree of polysemy. For example, CELT is a
> polysemic language for disambiguating an utterance
> in a controlled language that is not as wide as
> full English, but is wider than monosemic logic
> statements. Using WordNet word senses in a slightly
> restricted way, it transforms input sentences into
> FOL statements in KIF.
>
> The reason I like this approach is based on experience
> in trying to discuss domains with domain experts.
> These experts have vocabularies which they use with
> other experts based on their mutual familiarity with
> the domain terms. It the constant tuning of this
> knowledge in groups of people over time that makes
> a domain deeper than everyday experience. So the
> words they use are ingrained into their thinking,
> and its very difficult to get them to change to
> a vocabulary that fits the FOL language instead of
> their own.
>
> As a knowledge engineer on some projects, I have
> repeatedly observed this linguistic grounding in
> the experts' thought processes. I have trouble
> learning their words, but they have even more
> trouble learning my words. And they have little or
> no interest in the FOL representations, which they
> find pretty meaningless. Its their rootedness in
> a domain that they have lived in for many years that
> makes them more expert than me in that domain. So
> by giving them the names, verbs, phrases, and other
> linguistic concepts they find familiar, the project's
> productivity and clarity is greatly improved.
>
> With ROSIE, I had to first find out what their
> words meant, and then translate that into statements
> that defined these words in ROSIE terms. But when
> I went back to the experts with just a few words
> defined each day, they felt the progress was too
> slow, and often lost interest. An unmotivated
> expert, even ordered by his boss to cooperate, isn't
> very helpful. He just wants to get on with his
> own problems and solutions.
>
> So a better way is to record the experts' statements
> directly in the language and then to use tools to
> translate those statements into parsable FOL. Its
> the reverse of the restricted FOL concept.
>
> For many domains, there are large numbers of documents
> with lots of material that can be dragged through
> sieves to get better languages. I think that
> approach, with a FOL target language for the tools,
> is better than having the experts and the engineers
> forced into using a vocabulary and phrase structure
> that is unnatural to the domain. I didn't find
> the ROSIE rules very readable myself; these experts
> really do have deep roots into their language.
>
> JMHO,
> Rich
>
>
> > > While I like the basic idea of a controlled language,
> > > requiring monosemy is too strict a constraint for most
> > > people. I write from the familiarity of using a form
> > > of CLCE called ROSIE back in the late eighties.
> >
> > If you want a word, such as "bank" to have more
> > than one word sense, you can do so by using
> > distinct spellings, such as "bank1" and "bank2".
> > Or better, you can use hyphenated terms, such
> > as "river-bank" and "money-bank".
> >
> > John
> >
> >
> >
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