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Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontologies and languages

To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: Thomas Johnston <tmj44p@xxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 20:44:41 +0000 (UTC)
Message-id: <728551562.830910.1434573881271.JavaMail.yahoo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Hi Juan,

Even when, as you indicate, you are referring to languages for formal ontologies (not to other kinds of formal languages, and not to natural languages), the terminological issues are too vague to pin down. In other words, we mean too many things by "language" and "ontology", i.e. our usages are not well-regulated by agreement on sets of necessary and sufficient conditions for correct usage. 

But I would suggest, given this proviso, that an ontology is a formalization of the semantic relationships among the members of a lexicon, and a language is a means for combining lexical elements into statements. So it's somewhat analogous to the distinction, in a natural language, between expressions in a language, and the statements created from combinations of those expressions according to grammatical rules.

Of course, the semantic relationships among a set of expressions would themselves be expressed in statements, e.g. the semantic rule that "bachelor" means "unmarried adult male", in an ontology, would be expressed by the statement "A bachelor is an unmarried adult male" in the language for that ontology. So given this fact, a language is indeed a means for expressing the semantic relationships among expressions. The sentences thus produced are analytic sentences, ones true by definition.

But that's not all that a language (for a formal ontology) is. Another class of statements are the synthetic ones, the ones true if and only if what they state to be the case is, in fact, the case. A language for an ontology should be able to express synthetic statements as well.

Since there is no Aristotelian definition (by genus and specific difference) of "ontology" and "ontology language" (within the language community we are both part of), and since, as it seems to me, there will be almost as many putative definitions as there are people attempting to give them, this is little more than my own personal view. 

But I would remind anyone else willing to step up to the plate and attempt their own definitions of these terms, that a definition of an _expression_ is more than a collections of true statements about what that _expression_ purportedly represents. As much of an ideal rather than an achievable objective as Aristotelian definition is, it is still the gold standard.

Regards,

Tom Johnston




On Wednesday, June 17, 2015 9:59 AM, Juan de Nadie <juandenavas@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Hello all,

After reading several papers about ontology, I think that I'm not completely sure about the relationships between ontologies and languages.

When we build a domain ontology, its set of categories and relations can be used for developing a domain language for representing specific state of affairs of tis domain. With this in mind, as an ontologist, I was trying to understand the relationship between the ontology and the language developed using its set of categories and relations.
  • An ontology is a language? I found some papers that say something in this way. In this case, it seems that we are collapsing the notions of ontology and language or, at least, we are assuming that there is a subsumption between them.
  • An ontology defines a language? In this case, ontology and language are considered different types of entities. However, in this case, we can ask what are the differences between them.
  • Is there another option?

Thank you in advance.

Best regards.


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