Re: [ontolog-forum] Person, Boy, Man

[John McClure <jmcclure@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

'adult males' are both adjectives, representive of adult-male-things in a linguistic ontology of sorts, i.e., adjectives are facets applicable to some set of classes of individuals.  Again I think it'd be an excellent contribution to establish best practice recommendations regarding the most useful and or appropriate roles of nouns, adjectives and other parts of speech when developing ontologies.

On 2/12/2014 11:17 AM, William Frank wrote:

yes, this is an excellent subthread that Paul introduced,

Pejorative uses, but also, we have 'boys will be boys', which is maybe perjorative but I think applies more to men than boys, and 'boy oh boy", and the Irish 'Boy-o', and the English 'Old Boy,' which would be an oxymoron for boy as a state of a person, and "atta boy," 'boys night out', and 'how can I tell if my cat is a boy or a girl?' and someboyd said here that men were adult males, leaving out one of the many dimensions of context that Hans and others keep reminding us of, namely that there are also adult male lions and ginko trees, and 'good boy', and ....

Up till now, I thought a boy was anything I might want to associate with the things that up till then I thought of as a boy or boyish.

On Wed, Feb 12, 2014 at 1:29 PM, Matthew West <dr.matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Dear Paul,
Indeed. There are also multiple pejorative uses of "boy" as well.
Regards
Matthew

-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Paul Tyson
Sent: 12 February 2014 15:19
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Person, Boy, Man

Up to now, I had assumed the distinction between a man and a boy was which
could do a man's work.

Regards,
--Paul

> On Feb 12, 2014, at 7:28, "Matthew West" <dr.matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
>
> Dear Patrick,
>
> Up to now I have assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that a "time slice" of
> something refers to a time slice of an individual.
> [MW>] That is correct.
> But "man" and "boy"
> are classes, not individuals, and I need clarification from the
> experts as to whether a "time slice" can really be a class?  In what
> formalism is that not possible?
> [MW>] Well individual is also a class, man and boy are just classes
> whose members are timeslices of some person.
>
> If an ontology is to be used in Natural Language Processing (a
> critical application, IMHO), then it should diverge from linguistic
> usage only where necessary.  I agree that language has some aspects
> that do not translate well into the logical format of ontologies, but
> the subclass relation of "boy" to "person" seems very well established
> in ordinary usage, and if any ontology formalism cannot represent that
> relation, I do not see much of a future for that formalism.
> [MW>] We say that a man is a person, but this is very ambiguous. There
> are at least three interpretations of "is a" and we usually leave the
> distinguishing pieces out:
>
> 1. "Matthew is a person". This is a classification relation, and
> should more fully be stated "Matthew is an instance of person."
> 2. "A female is a person". This is a subtype relation, and should more
> fully be stated "Each female is also a person", or "female is a
> subtype of person".
> 3. "A boy is a person". This is a temporal part relation and should
> more fully be stated "Each boy is a state (or stage, or part of the
> life) of a person".
>
> One of the problems with language is that we leave out as much context
> as we think we can get away with, and sometimes find we have left out too
much.
>
> Regards
>
> Matthew West
> Information  Junction
> Mobile: +44 750 3385279
> Skype: dr.matthew.west
> matthew.west@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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>
>
> Pat
>
> Patrick Cassidy
> MICRA Inc.
> cassidy@xxxxxxxxx
> 1-908-561-3416
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-
>> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of doug foxvog
>> Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 4:49 PM
>> To: [ontolog-forum]
>> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Person, Boy, Man  >  >On Tue, February
>> 11,
> 2014 15:13, Ali H wrote:
>>> On Tue, Feb 11, 2014 at 2:48 PM, John McClure  >>
> <jmcclure@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>>
>>>> Take a Person for example, with subclasses Boy and Man.
>> *[MW] The main
>>>>> problem with this is that Boy and Man are not subtypes of person.
>>>>> For Boy and Man to be subtypes of Person, each Boy is a Person,
>>>>> and each Man is a (different) Person.
>>>>> What would be correct is that Boy and Man a subtypes of  >>>>
> StateOfPerson, and that each StateOfPerson is a temporalPart of a
> >>>>
> Person.*  >  >This is forcing a 4D view on those who don't wish to use it.
>>
>> Instead of claiming one model is (in)correct, it would be nicer to
>> say,
> "In the  >4D model, non-rigid classes such as Boy and Man, are not
> subtypes of rigid  >classes such as Person.  A 4D model would consider
> Boy and Man to be  >subtypes of a non-rigid StateOfPerson, and ..."
>>
>>>> To most people, and dictionaries, Boy and Man are subtypes of Person.
>>
>> The relation "subtype" means that any instance of the first thing
>> are instances of the second thing.  In 4D a Man or Boy is a time
>> slice of a MalePerson.
>> For
>> someone using 3D(+1) at any time there is an instance of a Man or
>> Boy,
> that  >instance is also an instance of Person.
>>
>>>> Second, should a KB contain both a Boy & Man resource about a given
>>>> individual, owl:sameAs would be used to indicate their equivalence
>>>> >>>
> otherwise, yes, they would be a different person, as they should be.
>>
>> If Man & Boy were defined as disjoint, then nothing could
>> simultaneously
> be  >an instance of both.  But something could in one context be an
> instance of  >one and in another context be an instance of the other.
>>
>>> First, you might want to take a look at the Ontoclean paper [1],[2].
>>> In this view, Boy is not Rigid, and hence not recommended to be  >>
> related to a Person via a subtype relationship.
>>
>> All this means is that Ontoclean promotes a 4D view.  If this is
>> merely a recommendation it does not require 4D.
>>
>>>> Third, StateofPerson is a wholly artificial term, lacking both  >>>
> practical merit and semantic credibility. Fourth, this is a fine  >>>
> example of ontologists' implicit saintliness modelling 'concepts' not
>> 'language'.
>>
>>> Secondly, from your posts to this forum, this (the privileging or
>>> >>
> equating ontology to language) seems to be a major point of departure
> >> from your perspective and (I suspect) many ontologists on the list.
>>
>> I agree.  Language can inform ontologies but they are quite different.
>>
>> If computer ontologies were originated by speakers of a language that
>> differentiates "is currently" from "is necessarily", that distinction
>> would
> be  >part of the ontology language.  There would be classes which
> instances are  >necessarily members of, and classes which instances
> may be members of for  >part of their existence (of which subclasses
> would be necessarily
>> (non)
>> initial, necessarily (non) final, and those which an instance can
>> join and
> leave  >multiple times).  It would also probably have resulted in
> three or more  >subclass/subtype relations: one between rigid classes,
> one between
> non-  >rigid and rigid classes, and one (or more) between non-rigid
classes.
>>
>> -- doug
>>
>>> Langauge and
>>> ontology *are not* the same things. While language may contain many
>>> >>
> clues as to how ontologically model something, it is only that - a clue.
>>> ...
>>
>>> I suspect the majority of ontologists have come to at least the  >>
> following conclusions:
>>>
>>>   1. Ontology != Language
>>>   2. There are serious limits to linguistic clues in building an
>>> ontology ...
>>
>>> Best,
>>> Ali
>>>
>>
>>
>>
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