Multilingualism and conceptual modelling

Ricardo Mairal-Usón,Carlos Periñán-Pascual

doi:10.5209/clac.52774

Abstract

One of the leading motivations behind the multilingual semantic web is to make resources accessible digitally in an online global multilingual context. Consequently, it is fundamental for knowledge bases to find a way to manage multilingualism and thus be equipped with those procedures for its conceptual modelling. In this context, the goal of this paper is to discuss how common-sense knowledge and cultural knowledge are modelled in a multilingual framework. More particularly, multilingualism and conceptual modelling are dealt with from the perspective of FunGramKB, a lexico-conceptual knowledge base for natural language understanding. This project argues for a clear division between the lexical and the conceptual dimensions of knowledge. Moreover, the conceptual layer is organized into three modules, which result from a strong commitment towards capturing semantic knowledge (Ontology), procedural knowledge (Cognicon) and episodic knowledge (Onomasticon). Cultural mismatches are discussed and formally represented at the three conceptual levels of FunGramKB.

Highlights

IntroductionOntological engineering projects focus on the development of knowledge bases (KB) that represent and organize world knowledge
Ontologies take the form of concept taxonomies where universal distinctions and features are applicable to and shared by different languages, it is clear that not all languages conceptualize reality in the same way and cultural distinctions play an essential part in ontology localization
As Montiel-Ponsoda (2011, chapter 8) described, ontology localization varies (i) by virtue of the nature of the domain involved, i.e. whether it is an internationallystandardized or a culturally-influenced domain; (ii) by the function of the ontology, that is, whether it has an instrumental (“the goal of the target ontology is to have the same function in the target community as the original ontology in the source community”) or a documentary function (“the purpose is to support the use of the original ontology by members of another linguistic community”); (iii) or by its categorization as interoperable (“how interoperable the new ontology needs to be to the original one”) vs. independent

Summary

Introduction

Ontological engineering projects focus on the development of knowledge bases (KB) that represent and organize world knowledge. This module stores two different types of schemata (i.e. snapshots and stories), since instances can be portrayed synchronically or diachronically This distinction is relevant to dealing with the documentary function of ontology localization, since it is possible to extend the ontology with culturally-specific information, as shown in the discussion of the lexical units referring to the head of government and the head of state (cf section 5). The representation of the internal properties of each conceptual unit in the three modules is done using COREL (Conceptual Representation Language), a machinetractable metalanguage which permits a fine-grained semantic description of conceptual units (Periñán-Pascual and Mairal-Usón, 2010) This is another differentiating feature with respect to external models, since RDF and OWL triplets do not allow such semantic depth as COREL. This is precisely the central concern of the following sections, an aspect which is usually ignored by knowledge engineers

A typology of cognitive knowledge

Common-Sense Knowledge

Situated Common-Sense Knowledge

Cultural knowledge

Conclusions