Ontology-based semantics
Mihai Ciocoiu, Dana S. Nau · 2000
We consider the problem of providing semantics for declarative languages, in a way that would be useful for enabling automated knowledge exchange. If we only have one (first order) language, we can formalize what we mean for a set of sentences to be a translation of another, by requiring that the two sets share the same models. However, in order to formalize translation for the case where the two sets of sentences are of different languages, we need a di#erent notion of semantics, capable of overcoming the language barrier. We introduce Ontology-Based Semantics with this purpose in mind. We show how ontologies can be used to make implicit assumptions explicit, and how they areintegratedinoursemanticsinorderto restrict the set of models a set of sentences has. We show how Ontology-Based Models can be used to formally define knowledge translation for the di#erent language case in a similar way ordinary models can be used to define translation for the one language situation. We also provi...