No One
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Int. J. Reasoning-based Intelligent Systems, Vol. n, No. m, 2008
Commonsense Knowledge,
Ontology and Ordinary Language
Walid S. Saba
American Institutes for Research,
1000 Thomas Jefferson Street, NW, Washington, DC 20007 USA
E-mail: wsaba@air.org
Abstract: Over two decades ago a “quite revolution” overwhelmingly replaced knowledgebased approaches in natural language processing (NLP) by quantitative (e.g., statistical, corpus-based, machine learning) methods. Although it is our firm belief that purely quantitative approaches cannot be the only paradigm for NLP, dissatisfaction with purely engineering approaches to the construction of large knowledge bases for NLP are somewhat justified. In this paper we hope to demonstrate that both trends are partly misguided and that the time has come to enrich logical semantics with an ontological structure that reflects our commonsense view of the world and the way we talk about in ordinary language. In this paper it will be demonstrated that assuming such an ontological structure a number of challenges in the semantics of natural language (e.g., metonymy, intensionality, copredication, nominal compounds, etc.) can be properly and uniformly addressed.
Keywords: Ontology, compositional semantics, commonsense knowledge, reasoning.
Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Saba, W. S. (2008) ‘Commonsense
Knowledge, Ontology and Ordinary Language’, Int. Journal of Reasoning-based Intelligent
Systems, Vol. n, No. n, pp.43–60.
Biographical notes: W. Saba received his PhD in Computer Science from Carleton University in 1999. He is currently a Principal Software Engineer at the American Institutes for
Research in Washington, DC. Prior to this he was in academia where he taught computer science at the University of Windsor and the American University of Beirut (AUB). For over 9 years he was also a consulting software engineer where worked at such places as
AT&T Bell Labs, MetLife and Cognos, Inc.
Int. J. Reasoning-based Intelligent Systems, Vol. n, No. m, 2008
Commonsense Knowledge,
Ontology and Ordinary Language
Walid S. Saba
American Institutes for Research,
1000 Thomas Jefferson Street, NW, Washington, DC 20007 USA
E-mail: wsaba@air.org
Abstract: Over two decades ago a “quite revolution” overwhelmingly replaced knowledgebased approaches in natural language processing (NLP) by quantitative (e.g., statistical, corpus-based, machine learning) methods. Although it is our firm belief that purely quantitative approaches cannot be the only paradigm for NLP, dissatisfaction with purely engineering approaches to the construction of large knowledge bases for NLP are somewhat justified. In this paper we hope to demonstrate that both trends are partly misguided and that the time has come to enrich logical semantics with an ontological structure that reflects our commonsense view of the world and the way we talk about in ordinary language. In this paper it will be demonstrated that assuming such an ontological structure a number of challenges in the semantics of natural language (e.g., metonymy, intensionality, copredication, nominal compounds, etc.) can be properly and uniformly addressed.
Keywords: Ontology, compositional semantics, commonsense knowledge, reasoning.
Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Saba, W. S. (2008) ‘Commonsense
Knowledge, Ontology and Ordinary Language’, Int. Journal of Reasoning-based Intelligent
Systems, Vol. n, No. n, pp.43–60.
Biographical notes: W. Saba received his PhD in Computer Science from Carleton University in 1999. He is currently a Principal Software Engineer at the American Institutes for
Research in Washington, DC. Prior to this he was in academia where he taught computer science at the University of Windsor and the American University of Beirut (AUB). For over 9 years he was also a consulting software engineer where worked at such places as
AT&T Bell Labs, MetLife and Cognos, Inc.
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