Creating and Querying Linguistically Motivated Ontologies

This paper argues that a formal ontology (in our case a description logic knowledge base) should be created in a linguistically motivated way so that it can be queried easily by non-specialists. This can best be achieved by using a strict naming convention that is based on those linguistic expressions that occur in the application domain for which the ontology will be created. We will see that ABox and TBox statements that closely follow this naming convention can be written directly in a controlled natural language and that the same controlled natural language can be used to query the description logic knowledge base. Both ABox and TBox statements written in controlled natural language are translated automatically into the Knowledge Representation System Specification (KRSS) syntax and questions are translated into RacerPro’s new query language nRQL and answered over the description logic knowledge base. Using a controlled natural language as a high-level interface language abstracts away from any formal notation and allows for true collaboration between humans and machines.