Ontological Semantics — Reference Index
Ontological Semantics
Section titled “Ontological Semantics”Sergei Nirenburg and Victor Raskin (2004). MIT Press.
A comprehensive approach to the treatment of text meaning by computer. Ontological semantics is an integrated complex of theories, methodologies, descriptions, and implementations centered on a world model (ontology) as the central resource for extracting and representing meaning.
Chapters
Section titled “Chapters”Part I: About Ontological Semantics
Section titled “Part I: About Ontological Semantics”| File | Chapter | Pages | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|
| 00-preface | Preface | 2-5 | Overview of the theory, methodology, and descriptions that comprise ontological semantics. Introduces the “society of microtheories” architecture. |
| 01-introduction | Ch. 1: Introduction | 6-27 | Foundational concepts: the intelligent agent model, static knowledge sources (ontology, fact database, lexicon, onomasticon), dynamic knowledge sources (analyzer, generator), and the concept of microtheories. |
| 02-philosophy-of-linguistics | Ch. 2: Philosophy of Linguistics | 28-81 | Philosophy of science applied to computational linguistics. Theory components (purview, premises, body, justification), parameters of linguistic semantic theories. |
| 03-meaning-in-linguistics | Ch. 3: Meaning in Linguistics | 82-99 | Positioning ontological semantics relative to formal semantics, cognitive linguistics, and computational linguistics traditions. |
| 04-lexical-semantics | Ch. 4: Lexical Semantics | 100-115 | Choices for lexical semantic representation: word senses, polysemy, synonymy, and the ontological semantic approach to lexicon construction. |
| 05-formal-ontology | Ch. 5: Formal Ontology | 116-130 | Philosophical and formal approaches to ontology: metaphysics, ontological categories, inheritance hierarchies, properties, relations, and the distinction between ontology and natural language. |
Part II: Ontological Semantics As Such
Section titled “Part II: Ontological Semantics As Such”| File | Chapter | Pages | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|
| 06-meaning-representation | Ch. 6: Meaning Representation | 131-154 | Text Meaning Representation (TMR): format, structure, propositional content, attitudes, discourse relations, and the process of meaning construction. |
| 07-static-knowledge-sources | Ch. 7: Static Knowledge Sources | 155-203 | The ontology (concepts, properties, relations, inheritance), the fact database (instances), the lexicon (word-to-concept mappings), and the onomasticon (proper nouns). Core data structures of the framework. |
| 08-processing | Ch. 8: Processing | 204-256 | Semantic text analysis: preprocessing, syntactic analysis, semantic analysis (basic and extended), and the control architecture for the analyzer. |
| 09-acquisition | Ch. 9: Knowledge Acquisition | 257-295 | Methodologies for acquiring ontological knowledge, lexicon entries, and fact database content. Semi-automated acquisition tools and workflows. |
| 10-conclusion | Ch. 10: Conclusion | 296-297 | Summary and future directions for ontological semantics. |
| bibliography | Bibliography | 298-328 | Complete bibliography of cited works. |
Relevance to Strategos Ontology Layer
Section titled “Relevance to Strategos Ontology Layer”The following chapters are most directly relevant to the Strategos.Ontology layer (see platform-architecture.md section 4.14):
- Ch. 5 (Formal Ontology) — Ontological categories, inheritance hierarchies, property types, and relations. Maps to our Object Types, Links, and Properties.
- Ch. 7 (Static Knowledge Sources) — The ontology’s internal structure (concepts as frames with property-value pairs), the fact database (instance patterns), and the lexicon (semantic mappings). Maps to our
ComposedOntology,IOntologyQuery, cross-domain links, and interface system. - Ch. 1 (Introduction) — Foundational concepts: the agent model, knowledge architecture, and the role of ontology in constraining agent action spaces.
- Ch. 6 (Meaning Representation) — TMR structure and the process/state representation model. Relevant to our Lifecycle and Action primitives.
See ontology-theoretical-grounding.md for the formal analysis mapping these concepts to our ontology layer.