Ontological Metamodeling with Explicit Instantiation

Abstract

Abstract. Model Driven Engineering (MDE) is a promising paradigm for software development. It raises the level of abstraction in software development by treating models as primary artifacts. The definition of a metamodel is a recurring task in MDE and requires sound and formal support. The lack of such support causes deficiencies such as conceptual anomalies in the modeling languages. From philosophical point of view metamodels can be seen as metaconceptualizations. Metalanguages have to provide constructs for building ontological theories as a base for modeling languages. This paper describes a new metalanguage derived from the study of Formal Ontology. This metalanguage raises the level of abstraction of metamodels from pure abstract syntax to semantics descriptions based on ontologies. Thus, the language developers can make conscious choices for their modeling concepts and can explicitly define important relations such as instantiation and generalization. With this metalanguage, we aim at a precise conceptual and formal foundation for metamodeling.

Bridging metamodels and ontologies in software engineering

“…11 is more aligned with the two-dimensional representations used by Atkinson and Kuhne and others in terms of their varying attempts at resolution of the ontologic/linguistic metamodelling challenge-although the author (Guizzardi) does not couch his argument in such terms. A similar approach is taken by Laarman and Kurtev (2010) who use the work of Guizzardi applied to the linguistic/ontological paradox highlighted by Atkinson and Kühne. These authors create a "four-category ontology" on which they build an Ontology Grounded Metalanguage (OGML) that incorporates both classical linguistic elements (as found for instance in the UML/MDA world) and ontological elements-specifically Individual (with two subtypes of Substantial and Moment) and Universal (with two subtypes of Substantial Universal and Moment Universal).…”

“…They describe the modelling/metamodelling approach that focusses on domain concepts (at different abstraction levels) as "ontological" in contrast to the adoption of concepts like class, object, relationship which they label as "linguistic" (earlier called logical and physical, respectively, e.g. Atkinson and Kühne, 2002); pointing out that the OMG strict metamodelling hierarchy is most closely aligned with the linguistic approach and is weak in support of ontological modelling (see also Laarman and Kurtev, 2010).…”

Simulation of the cdmm-p paradigm-driven meta-modeling process

“…There are some papers focused on the application of ontologies to domain model construction [8,6,22,12] and its customization [20] dedicated to vertical OMG standards. Application of ontology for static class model inference [9] and for meta-language construction [18] are also known. The ontology can be used for application design, like in the case of JOINT system [16].…”

Joint Language and Domain Engineering

“…In [17] a metamodeling language is presented which allows for building ontological theories as a base for modeling languages from the philosophical point of view. The M3 metamodel consists of elements for individuals and universals (types) and in addition provides a textual concrete syntax.…”