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Re: [ontolog-forum] What goes into a Lexicon?

To: "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Obrst, Leo J." <lobrst@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:43:40 +0000
Message-id: <FDFBC56B2482EE48850DB651ADF7FEB01827F770@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Gary,

 

Comments below.

 

Thanks,

Leo

 

From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Gary Berg-Cross
Sent: Monday, February 20, 2012 11:32 AM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] What goes into a Lexicon?

 

Leo,

L>However, semantics is about ways of referring (principally language) to the objects and categories of the world, whereas ontology is about those referents.

This is an interesting way of talking about semantics and ontology, but I have a simple, more or less informal question for the semantics and ontology of something like an Event and what causes an event. 

There are Event ontologies and in some there is what you might call the semantic position. What we call an events or its cause  is just our way of talking about phenomena we observe. We don't posit in the Ontology that these are the real or totally adequate causes of the actual reality. Such an ontology is useful because it corresponds to an interpretation of reality, but does not claim it reflects the total reality.

[Leo: ] I don’t think anyone can claim that any engineering ontology reflects total reality. I certainly would not make such a claim. All of our products are approximations, usable by software (or for reference for humans), for intended purposes. Sure, our way of talking about X is the semantics (for X), but the ultimate referent generally for X is in the world (i.e., a subject for ontology). Some referents are not in the world per se (e.g., “square circles”, “green ideas”) but in some sense have a mind-internal representation (concept, idea, etc.), but it’s limited. For example, one would probably not have instances of “square circles”.

As you go on to locate things in the triangle of significance/meaning this is thus more of a conversation about the relation of 2) sense/concept, and  3) world reference.

[Leo: ] Yes, (1) the word, is what I would call the syntax, i.e., the string “rock” or utterance “rock”. What is means is “in” (2)->(3).

Gary Berg-Cross, Ph.D.  

NSF INTEROP Project  

SOCoP Executive Secretary

Knowledge Strategies    

Potomac, MD

240-426-0770

 

On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 1:32 PM, Obrst, Leo J. <lobrst@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

One of the  problems is that both semantics and ontology are generally under the umbrella of “semantic technologies”, which leads people to think they are the same.

 

However, semantics is about ways of referring (principally language) to the objects and categories of the world, whereas ontology is about those referents.

 

To some extent, the semiotic triangle (triangle of significance) tries to show that there are 3 nodes: 1) word, 2) sense/concept, and 3) world reference, with some folks attempting to eliminate (2).  I usually consider (2) to be a kind of mental placeholder for (3), so that when you try to obtain the denotation of a word, you go through (2) to find (3). Linguists (semanticists) are usually interested in (1-2), ontologists are usually interested in (2-3), with, however, often different philosophical “stances” on how (3) (and sometimes 2) is interpreted, i.e., idealism, nominalism, conceptualism, and realism (and other shades). And for (1-2) there is lexical semantics and there is compositional semantics, with different semantical “stances” on how to interpret these, e.g., model-theoretic semantics and cognitive semantics.

 

Using our language we can talk about impossible objects like “square circles” or anomalies like “green ideas”; these do not have real world referents.

 

Thanks,

Leo

 

 

From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Amanda Vizedom
Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2012 12:08 PM


To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] What goes into a Lexicon?

 

David,

On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 10:41, David Eddy <deddy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

 

At one point I entertained delusions that ontologies would help with this issue (one conceptual label = many physical labels).  Obviously I no longer hope in that direction.

 

 

That's a shame, and a failure of the ontologies you've worked with. Many ontologies and applications exist that *do* help with this.  From federated information integration to multilingual search and retrieval to cross-domain (or even just multi-user-type) systems of all sorts, there are numerous existing ontology usages in which the ability to help with this issue is a key benefit of ontologies and a critical part of the application's success.

 

There are also plenty of insufficiently trained ontologists who do not understand the concept/_expression_ distinction sufficiently.  I have been known to have long technical discussions in which I ban the use of "term" "vocabulary" and several other expressions that are, in practice, ambiguous between the conceptual thing and the lexical thing; that was an extreme action necessitated by a lack of consistent understanding across the development team, such that some would revert to thinking of ontological things lexically. That meant both applying unsuitable design criteria to the ontology *and* failing to capture the lexical expressions and relationship appropriately. Not to mention massive bog-downs as people debate what "location" "really means", when there is no ontological conflict; there are simply multiple, distinct, and significant concepts which should be captured in the ontology, defined sufficiently (in formalisms, not just text annotations) to capture the differences between them, and mapped lexically (i.e., given the label, etc.) to "location." 

 

This is often a training and personnel issue. It is also, IMNSHO, one of the areas in which ontology as a field can improve by developing explicit dimensions of ontology requirement specification and explicit, experience- and research-backed guidelines regarding ontology features and characteristics that are suitable or necessary for an ontology that must meet those various requirements.

 

Amanda 



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