Towards Contingent World Descriptions in Description Logics

Abstract

The philosophical, logical, and terminological junctions between Description Logics (DLs) and Modal Logic (ML) are important because they can support the formal analysis of modal notions of 'possibility' and 'necessity' through the lens of DLs. This paper introduces functional contingents in order to (i) structurally and terminologically analyse 'functional possibility' and 'functional necessity' in DL world descriptions and (ii) logically and terminologically annotate DL world descriptions based on functional contingents. The most significant contributions of this research are the logical characterisation and terminological analysis of functional contingents in DL world descriptions. The ultimate goal is to investigate how modal operators can  logically and terminologically  be expressed within DL world descriptions.

The Form in Formal Thought Disorder: A Model of Dyssyntax in Semantic Networking

“…Here, we adopt them as such. Additionally, we eliminate the criticism above by equipping semantic networks with a formal semantics via description logic (DL), which is known to model adequately terminological knowledge (see [7][8][9][10][11][12]), and we consider them in the framework of semantic or terminological memory, thus providing an account of the mental representation of meaning. Semantic networks and frame-based systems (based on which knowledge may be divided into interrelated sub-structural frames, in order to be represented; see [13,14]) are at the very foundations of DL (see [15,16]).…”

“…The application of formal languages, namely of symbolic logic, is in our opinion an interesting means to bridge these two poles. Symbolic logic is believed to formalize adequately human reasoning and cognitive skills tightly connected to language; when associated to computational assumptions and/or techniques, we believe this to be a fruitful path to research into formal aspects of human language production [12,28].…”