- From: John McCrae <jmccrae@cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de>
- Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2012 11:18:57 +0200
- To: Guido Vetere <gvetere@it.ibm.com>
- Cc: public-ontolex@w3.org
- Message-ID: <CAC5njqqaZUV4sicpHbGoZW1=Cj3ecG5giGwiep2EA7r4659u9w@mail.gmail.com>
Hi all, I have attempted to collect the main points of the discussion in the Wiki, could you look over the summary and add future points directly in the Wiki http://www.w3.org/community/ontolex/wiki/Specification_of_Requirements/Lexicon-Ontology-Mapping Regards, John On Wed, Oct 17, 2012 at 10:33 AM, Guido Vetere <gvetere@it.ibm.com> wrote: > Aldo, > you are right, we cannot discuss philosophical matters here, but on the > other hand I see basic questions that may have a deep impact on the > technical soundness of the proposal. For instance, it looks like you see > ontologies as 'constants from a vocabulary' while I think that vocabularies > are made of lexical entries + senses, while ontologies are theories of what > exists. I don't want to start a discussion on constructivism vs critical > realism here, but for sure we have to choose one of the three options: 1) > implement a vision like yours, 2) implement a vision like mine, 3) > implement something that accommodates both. > > Philipp, > if the final decision is to have signs referring to class names that's > fine, but still I think that we need to explicit different possible formal > semantics that people (e.g. resource developers and users) can attach to > the relation in question, e.g. to support scenarios in which reasoning on > the correspondence between ontological disjunctions and antonymy of senses > is needed. > > Cheers, > > Guido Vetere > Manager, Center for Advanced Studies IBM Italia > _________________________________________________ > Rome Trento > Via Sciangai 53 Via Sommarive 18 > 00144 Roma, Italy 38123 Povo in Trento, Italy > +39 (0)6 59662137 +39 (0)461 312312 > > Mobile: +39 3357454658 > _________________________________________________ > > > *Philipp Cimiano <cimiano@cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de>* > > 15/10/2012 18:58 > To > public-ontolex@w3.org > cc > Subject > Re: Issues about the semantics of the ontology-lexicon interface [was: > Re: Why not to shortcut the "sense" object] > > > > > Dear all, > > my understanding is completely in line with what Aldo is saying here. The > "OntologyEntity" should be seen as a plain constant that "represents" the > intension in question. > > The nice thing is that one can manipulate this constant independent of its > ontological commitment. This is in line with what Aldo is saying below. So > punning is not only a syntactic trick, but a principled strategy to refer > to the symbol that represents a certain ontological commitment. > > I attach a short document that I have just created. I am not sure this > will introduce more confusion. I hope not. I will elaborate this in more > detail later, but I wanted to provide this for the current thread of > discussion as quickly as possible. > > I think it is in line with Aldo's position. Aldo? > > Philipp. > > Am 15.10.12 18:28, schrieb Aldo Gangemi: > Thx Guido, this discussion is very useful (provided that we do not get > into the infamous "sumo-threads" where each discussion used to get > eventually to discussing the nature of matter and life :)). > > On Oct 15, 2012, at 2:37 PM, Guido Vetere <*gvetere@it.ibm.com*<gvetere@it.ibm.com>> > wrote: > > Aldo, Armando, > > A couple of things about what you said (on the rest, I generally agree). > > As for the name of the arrow (property?) linking senses and concepts, Aldo > is right, maybe 'characterize' is not appropriate in this context (indeed, > the notion comes from mathematics) and is not likely to be accepted by the > community. But 'representedBy', if read from left to right (a sense is > represented by a concept), could be even worse, since, in the mainstream of > western semiotics, signs represent things and stand for them (aliquid pro > aliquo), and not the other way around. Maybe we could adopt the classic > (e.g. Odgen-Richard) 'refers to', even if the binding with the 'referential > function' may be inappropriate. It looks like a trivial naming detail, but > it may have an impact on the way people grasp the intended meaning of the > model. > > The reason why I like "representedBy", despite its generic ambiguity, is > that I see ontology entities firstly as constants from a vocabulary. As > constants, they can perfectly "represent" senses. Indeed, this is quite > inline even with formal ontology and logic (cf. Nicola Guarino's 2003 paper > on conceptualizations). > Of course, constants of a vocabulary get a *formal* meaning/interpretation > that is based on model theory, but this is another story, which gives us > room to claim that lexical entries can have a (formal) semantics with > ontology entities. > In other words, the way the ontology-lexicon interface works seems to be > the following: > > - a lexical entry has some sense (either local or general/conventional), > which we can call "lexical meaning" > - a sense can get ("be represented by", or "be expressed by") a constant > (ontology entity) in a formal vocabulary > - that constant has a formal interpretation provided by logical and domain > axioms: this is a "formal meaning" > > Unfortunately, logicians have substantially identified intension (which is > the closest relative to lexical meaning) with the constants of a > vocabulary. Therefore, the only original, operational, and useful semantic > stuff that we have from logical models is extensional meaning. But we are > not going to talk about that as well, right? ;). Since we are not doing > that, ontology entities from OWL/RDF will be inevitably ambiguous, and > depending on context, sometimes they can be considered as constants, and > sometimes as meanings. > > > This leads to the more basic question about the logic nature of this > relation, i.e. of what kind of logical things fill the pattern: Lexical > unit --meaning--> Sense --refers to--> Ontological concept. If we give this > graph a DL interpretation, as I tried to do, nodes could be first order > unary predicates and arrows (restricted) first order binary predicates. In > this reading, instances of Sense (e.g. cat#1) would be related to instances > of Concepts (e.g. my cat). Aldo suggests that this model would be in > conflict with the intuition that cat#1 may in many cases refer to cats in > general, i.e. the whole class of cats. However, 'class vs instance' > ('intensional' vs 'extensional', if you whish) is part of the systematic > polysemy for many senses, if not for senses in general. Dictionary > developers might want to use the same sense of 'cat' both for 'the cat is > on the mat' and 'the cat is a feline'. Now, it is true that an axiom of the > form cat#1 TYPE (Sense AND refersTo ONLY Cat) would not capture the > intensional reading of the sense, but, conversely, setting 'refers to' to > range on class names, as Aldo suggests, would not capture the extensional > one. > > Maybe there is a misunderstanding here. When I read your "cat#1" I'm > interpreting it as a sense of the word "cat", not as a particular cat. > Now, if I interpret you right, cat#1 would be a Sense that is represented > by some OntologyEntity. > On the contrary, if you mean a particular cat, I'm not following you > anymore: why a cat should be a Sense? > > > In general, using class names as values for the property in question, e.g. > by using OWL 2 punning, raises the question of providing the property with > some extra formal semantics, since punning, as you know, is just a > syntactic trick. As Aldo says, problems like this have been tackled by > other specifications already, such as SKOS. However, we here face the > problem of dealing with any legacy ontology, which rely on standard > set-theoretic semantics, instead of 'ad hoc' conceptual frameworks. Thus, > we should come up with a model that preserves both the intended formal > meaning of standard ontologies and the complexity of linguistic > signification, which is not an easy task, and cannot be pursued just by > naming conventions. > > You're right in general, but I think that this is too much for this > Community Group: after all, we do not want to solve the harsh problems of > higher-order logics applied to natural language semantics. > Anyway, punning is not much a trick (despite its name), but a regular > logical way of interpreting constants in a theory by partitioning their > interpretations. The fact that those interpretations do not interact as in > a rocketing HOL is simply due to the limitations we accept for having a Web > Ontology Language, which is in addition considered way too expressive … > > > In my opinion, much depends on what 'Sense' represents in our basic > pattern. I understand well, this concept is currently associated to either > definitions in dictionaries or synsets in wordnets, thus being a mostly > lexicographic notion. A different ontology could model Sense as a class of > socially constructed abstractions evoked in linguistic acts, independent > from dictionaries and wordnets. In the former case, Sense could be a leaf > class, and what we link through arrows are instances. In latter case, I > think that 'Sense' should rather be the root of a class hierarchy, and what > we link to lexemes should be Sense's subclasses, whose instances, in turn, > represent meanings in their textual occurrences. By the way, Senso Comune > embraces an ontology like this. So a good question to start with would be: > what do we mean when we say 'Sense'? > > My impression is that we cannot (and shouldn't in my opinion) attempt to > solve that kind of issues; on the contrary, it's very useful to abstract > out of them. > A sense can be profitably (and yes, ambiguously) figured out as any > conceptualization associated with a lexical entry, be it an entry, a > definition/gloss, an ID, a paraphrase, a reference to some other > disambiguating source, or even (please do not shoot me) formal meanings and > cognitive objects studied by neurolinguistics. > In the particular community of linked data and the semantic web, we can > refrain from discussing too much what a sense is, and begin to see how > interesting are the links emerging out of those apparently different > creatures. > > Ciao > Aldo > > > Cheers, > > Guido Vetere > Manager, Center for Advanced Studies IBM Italia > _________________________________________________ > Rome Trento > Via Sciangai 53 Via Sommarive 18 > 00144 Roma, Italy 38123 Povo in Trento, Italy > +39 (0)6 59662137 +39 (0)461 312312 > > Mobile: +39 3357454658 > _________________________________________________ > > *Aldo Gangemi <**aldo.gangemi@cnr.it* <aldo.gangemi@cnr.it>*>* > > 13/10/2012 14:40 > > To > public-ontolex <*public-ontolex@w3.org* <public-ontolex@w3.org>> > cc > Aldo Gangemi <*aldo.gangemi@cnr.it* <aldo.gangemi@cnr.it>>, John McCrae <* > jmccrae@cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de* <jmccrae@cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de>>, > Armando Stellato <*stellato@info.uniroma2.it* <stellato@info.uniroma2.it>>, > Guido Vetere/Italy/IBM@IBMIT, Philipp Cimiano <* > cimiano@cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de* <cimiano@cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de>> > Subject > Issues about the semantics of the ontology-lexicon interface [was: Re: Why > not to shortcut the "sense" object] > > > > > > > Hi all, I lagged behind in the last month, because of my recent > installation in Paris. Yesterday I was traveling back from Galway (EKAW) > and couldn't attend, apologies for that. > I have followed the recent discussion, and that's my contribution. I have > renamed the thread, because it is now spanning over different topics > related to the semantics ig the O-L interface. > > ---Senses--- > Concerning Philipp's summary, firstly I agree with the decision (?not yet > approved, it seems?) of creating the intermediate Sense class: it's > obviously needed, either for making room for lexical senses (definitely to > be distinguished from ontology entities), or to be able to talk about > senses (reifications of the meaning function). > Concerning the name, I vote for "sense", because sememes, acceptations, > and others, are either very technical for the layman, or even wrong, as > Philipp reminds us about the original notion of sememe. The only real > alternative would be "meaning", but I'd rather keep that term for the > top-level class of a meaning taxonomy, as I suggest in the following. > > In a previous mail, I proposed to consider also an additional solution, > i.e. to create a taxonomy of meanings, which has ontology entities (as > formal semantic objects) and lexical senses as special subclasses. The two > solutions are compatible, and if we realize that a meaning taxonomy might > be useful, it can be introduced anyway. > Think of the sense-synset issue raised by Philipp: I agree that synsets > are not lexical senses, if we assume that a lexical sense should be > expressed by only one lexical unit (cardinality exactly 1), but still they > are senses, and it's completely reasonable to put synsets (as well as many > other creatures of lexical semantics, including sememes, acceptations, > frames, semantic verb classes, etc.) in a meaning taxonomy. > > Concerning the property names, I'm ok with both LexicalEntry – meaning –> > Sense, and with Sense – representedBy –> OntologyEntity. > Maybe we could get rid of multiple related uses of the "mean" notion, > which can be somehow disturbing: Meaning as a class, meaning as a property > between lexical entries and senses, means as a property between lexical > entries and ontology entities … it may look like we are playing with words > … what about following the conventional naming patterns that employs the > name of the property range? E.g. LexicalEntry – sense –> Sense ; > LexicalEntry – meansOntologyEntity –> OntologyEntity. The advantage of > using this apparently redundant naming is that at the instance level, the > triple become very clear, e.g. Saxophone – sense –> wordsense-saxophone-1 ; > Saxophone – hasOntologyEntity –> music:Saxophone. > I also prefer "representedBy" to "characterizes", because the second is > very generic and not attested in any related literature. > > ---Property chaining over senses--- > Secondly, I agree with the decision to add a property chain in the model, > which helps resolving the indirection produced by the Sense class: this is > a good practice (a logical design pattern), used in many contexts. I do not > see room for John's criticism about it: it does not increase the cognitive > complexity (on the contrary, it facilitates the use of the model for those > reluctant to catch on the sense-ontology-entity distinction), and the added > computational complexity only holds when a DL reasoner materializes the > ABox. > One mild problem here might be that we are making slightly different > assumptions when we name "representedBy" the property between senses and > ontology entities, but "means" the property between lexical entries and > ontology entities. Since we do not have a rich axiomatization behind these > names, we might be pragmatic and ignore the problem, however I deem > important to justify it a little bit in the documentation. In practice, > this approach seems to suggest that senses are actually "represented" by > ontology entities, and this is clear and intuitive. It also suggests that > lexical entries actually "mean" ontology entities, but this is far less > clear and intuitive, since in no obvious way words mean stuff in ontologies > … it's much better to say that words have conceptualizations that are > represented in ontologies. Indeed this is the way we talk of lexical senses > :). That's why my above suggestion was "hasOntologyEntity", which however I > admit ti be too generic. In principle, the compositional name that best > fits the property chain would be "hasSenseRepresentedByOntologyEntity", but > it's way too long, specially for those willing to use that property as a > shortcut. Other suggestions? > > ---GCIs on ontology hierarchies--- > Finally, a comment about Guido's observation that "cat#1 INSTANCEOF > (Sense AND characterizes ONLY Animal)" is the right formalization for an > example of the representedBy object property values. If I understand well, > here we have two important issues. The first one can be solved by using > OWL2, the second poses a more difficult challenge. > For the first issue, I think that Guido talks about OWL1, but anyway that > axiom would give us a misinterpretation, because it would tell us that > cat#1 is a sense that can only be represented by *individuals* from the > class Animal, which is not what Guido wants I guess. This problem was > described in detail by W3C SWBPD committee in 2004, and eventually some > OWL1 solutions were recommended in the "Classes as values" design pattern. > However, in OWL2 (lucky us) punning makes our lives easier, and a simple > (partial!) solution is (in Manchester syntax) "cat#1 TYPES (Sense AND > representedBy VALUE Animal)". > For the second issue, Guido points out that there are cases in which we > need to refer to generic subclasses of an ontology entity (if it's a > class): this cannot be expressed in OWL at all, since we cannot use the OWL > vocabulary in the position for the domain vocabulary, In other words, the > following is a wrong axiom even in OWL2: "cat#1 TYPES (Sense AND > representedBy (subClassOf VALUE Animal)". > A viable design pattern is to create a property for meaning hierarchies, > in the vein of skos:broader or wordnet:hypernym, so that we could declare > e.g.: "cat#1 TYPES (Sense AND representedBy ([skos:broader] VALUE Animal)". > > However, a property like skos:broader typically applies to concepts, and > senses would probably be compatible. Much less are ontology entities > compatible, even though SKOS seems to suggest a loose correspondence > between concepts and rdfs/owl classes. In particular, we should materialize > ontology class hierarchies as skos:broader hierarchies in order to reason > over these constructs. > Another design pattern might resort to a specialized property, such as > "broadlyRepresentedBy", e.g.: "cat#1 TYPES (Sense AND broadlyRepresentedBy > VALUE Animal)". "broadlyRepresentedBy" can be a super property of > representedBy. Of course, with this second pattern, we would lose the > sophisticated DL reasoning that one can get with the first. Nonetheless, > the second seems more practical and simple to apply for different levels of > expertise. > > Ciao > Aldo > > _____________________________________ > > Aldo Gangemi > Senior Researcher > Semantic Technology Lab (STLab) > Institute for Cognitive Science and Technology, > National Research Council (ISTC-CNR) > Via Nomentana 56, 00161, Roma, Italy > Tel: +390644161535 > Fax: +390644161513 * > **aldo.gangemi@cnr.it* <aldo.gangemi@cnr.it> * > **http://www.stlab.istc.cnr.it* <http://www.stlab.istc.cnr.it/> * > **http://www.istc.cnr.it/people/aldo-gangemi*<http://www.istc.cnr.it/people/aldo-gangemi> > skype aldogangemi > okkam ID: *http://www.okkam.org/entity/ok200707031186131660596*<http://www.okkam.org/entity/ok200707031186131660596> > > On Oct 12, 2012, at 6:55 PM, John McCrae <*jmccrae@cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de > * <jmccrae@cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de>> wrote: > > On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 6:35 PM, Armando Stellato <* > stellato@info.uniroma2.it* <stellato@info.uniroma2.it>> wrote: > > From what I got, and hope not to be wrong (it’s useful also for me to > clarify as I missed a couple of calls on September), OntologyEntity is a > generic rdf:Resource of one of the main entities in the main vocabularies > (aka: OWL and SKOS, thus: property, class, individual, skos concept…). > > Another question to John from my side: from your email it seemed to be > against stating the propertyChain axiom on (means, <meaning,representedBy>) > implying that the direct Entry ---means--> OntologyEntity from "Lexical > Entry -> meaning -> Sense -> representedBy -> OntologyEntity" but then > the sentence: “Here the difference is 1 named elements vs. 3 named > elements, but as stated above, at least half of users (data consumers) will > have to understand all 4 names...” instilled some doubt in my > interpretation… > > > > Are you voting against the larger structure as a whole (thus keeping only > the Entry ---means--> OntologyEntity structure), or against the > propertyChain axiom? I really got the second, though I’m not even sure how > adding the p.chain axiom (or not doing it) would change anything for the > user or consumer. I’m sure I’m missing something, so sorry in advance for > my potential misinterpretation. > > Sorry it isn't clear: the long chain is TBMK agreed upon (Lexical Entry > -> meaning -> Sense -> representedBy -> OntologyEntity)*... we are > questioning whether we need the short chain (Entry ---means--> > OntologyEntity) as well. I say it is not worth it. > > Regards, > John > > * or (Word -> sense -> Sememe/Acceptation -> characterizes -> > rdf:Resource/skos:Concept/owl:Entity) or some combination of these terms. > > > > Have a nice we! > > > > Armando > > > > > *From:* Guido Vetere [mailto:*gvetere@it.ibm.com* <gvetere@it.ibm.com>] * > Sent:* Friday, October 12, 2012 6:08 PM* > To:* public-ontolex* > Subject:* Re: Why not to shortcut the "sense" object > > > > All, > > I apologize for missing the call today. Here just some short remark. > > "Entry ---means--> OntologyEntity" means that if you want to predicate on > the meaning relationship (e.g. to associate some grammatical constraint) > you have to resort on a meta predicates (e.g. OWL Annotations). > > "Lexical Entry -> meaning -> Sense -> representedBy -> OntologyEntity" > sounds good, but instead of 'representedBy' I would say 'characterizes' or > something alike, meaning that a linguistic sense gives a (cultural) shape > to an entity. Moreover, it is not clear to me (maybe you discussed about > that) whether OntologyEntity is a first order TOP concept (e.g. equivalent > to OWL Thing). In this case, note that in order to tell that the instance > of Sense 'cat#1' (i.e. the first sense of the lemma 'cat') represents an > Animal, you have to write something like: > > cat#1 INSTANCEOF (Sense AND characterizes ONLY Animal). > > Is it correct? > > If there is something that I can do, please let me know. > > Regards, > > Guido Vetere > Manager, Center for Advanced Studies IBM Italia > _________________________________________________ > Rome Trento > Via Sciangai 53 Via Sommarive 18 > 00144 Roma, Italy 38123 Povo in Trento, Italy* > **+39 (0)6 59662137* <%2B39%20%280%296%2059662137> *+39 > (0)461 312312* <%2B39%20%280%29461%20312312> > > Mobile: *+39 3357454658* <%2B39%203357454658> > _________________________________________________ > > *John McCrae <**jmccrae@cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de*<jmccrae@cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de> > *>* > Sent by: *johnmccrae@gmail.com* <johnmccrae@gmail.com> > > 12/10/2012 16:35 > > To > public-ontolex <*public-ontolex@w3.org* <public-ontolex@w3.org>> > cc > Subject > Why not to shortcut the "sense" object > > > > > > > > > Hi all, > > As discussed today in the telco there is a proposal to introduce a > shortcut replacing "Entry ---sense--> Sense ---representedBy--> > OntologyEntity" with "Entry ---means--> OntologyEntity", while this is > theory sounds good, I contend that in practice it is not worth the effort. > (This is based on practical experience with the *lemon* model). > > - *It does not make the model easier to use*: It is clear that for > data producers this proposal simplifies the matter (as less links and URIs > are required), however for data consumers it complicates the models (as > they need to understand both methods of linking and be able to infer > equivalence between the two methods). Thus, if EaseOfUse = (% of Consumers) > × EaseOfUse(Consumer) + (% of Producers) × EaseOfUse(Producer), hence if we > assume there will be approx. as many producers as consumer then we need > only ask is it worth "is the extra effort for the producer less than that > for the consumer", i.e., "would you rather implement a system that infers > similarity across multiple representations, or use extra links and URIs"? > - *It does not make the model easier to understand*: While, I > understand that the sense object is nebulous and difficult per se to > understand, I would still argue that the clearest measure of how easy to > understand a model is, is the number of named elements it has (as many > users may not need to deeply understand the meaning of a sense, but be > happy to know that "translation", "antonymy" and "register" go there). Here > the difference is 1 named elements vs. 3 named elements, but as stated > above, at least half of users (data consumers) will have to understand all > 4 names... if we assume out of the producers 70% do not need to represent > senses (and thus any associated properties, "translation", "antonymy", > "register") then the average number of links a user will need to understand > is 4 × 0.5 + 3 × 0.5 × 0.3 + 1 × 0.5 × 0.7 = 2.8... so it makes the model > all of 7% easier to understand! Worse, this figure is overgenerous as: I > expect there to more data consumers than producers and I expect at least > 50% of users to require sense modelling. > > Regards, > John > > IBM Italia S.p.A. > Sede Legale: Circonvallazione Idroscalo - 20090 Segrate (MI) > Cap. Soc. euro 347.256.998,80 > C. F. e Reg. Imprese MI 01442240030 - Partita IVA 10914660153 > Società con unico azionista > Società soggetta all’attività di direzione e coordinamento di > International Business Machines Corporation > > (Salvo che sia diversamente indicato sopra / Unless stated otherwise above) > > > > > IBM Italia S.p.A. > Sede Legale: Circonvallazione Idroscalo - 20090 Segrate (MI) > Cap. Soc. euro 347.256.998,80 > C. F. e Reg. Imprese MI 01442240030 - Partita IVA 10914660153 > Società con unico azionista > Società soggetta all’attività di direzione e coordinamento di > International Business Machines Corporation > > (Salvo che sia diversamente indicato sopra / Unless stated otherwise above) > > > > > -- > Prof. Dr. Philipp Cimiano > Semantic Computing Group > Excellence Cluster - Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC) > University of Bielefeld > > Phone: +49 521 106 12249 > Fax: +49 521 106 12412 > Mail: *cimiano@cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de* <cimiano@cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de> > > > Room H-127 > Morgenbreede 39 > 33615 Bielefeld[attachment "senses.pdf" deleted by Guido Vetere/Italy/IBM] > > IBM Italia S.p.A. > Sede Legale: Circonvallazione Idroscalo - 20090 Segrate (MI) > Cap. Soc. euro 347.256.998,80 > C. F. e Reg. Imprese MI 01442240030 - Partita IVA 10914660153 > Società con unico azionista > Società soggetta all’attività di direzione e coordinamento di > International Business Machines Corporation > > (Salvo che sia diversamente indicato sopra / Unless stated otherwise above) > >
Received on Wednesday, 17 October 2012 09:19:32 UTC