smoliar@VAXA.ISI.EDU (Stephen Smoliar) (07/01/88)
Posted-Date: Mon, 27 Jun 88 08:20:08 PDT To: ailist@ai.ai.mit.edu cc: sas@bbn.com Subject: linguistic metaphor for knowledge representation Date: Mon, 27 Jun 88 11:20 EDT From: Stephen Smoliar <smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu> Seth at BBN proposed a view of TYPES as "adjectives" and INSTANCES as "nouns," as an alternative to my view of TYPES as "nouns" (and INSTANCES sort of swept under the rug as "entities"). Seth has a good point which, as I understand it, actually has its roots in KL-ONE. (I suspect Ron Brachman will correct me if my understanding is off.) The "types" of KL-ONE are called "classes;" and while they might seem nominal, their usage is closer to adjectival. Thus, while there might be a class called DOCTOR, the class is meant to embody the DESCRIPTION of a doctor. I have heard various KL-ONE users employ phrases like "doctor-like" or "doctor-ish" in discussing such a class. The adjectival point of view becomes more apparent when you consider that a concept like RICH-DOCTOR may be defined as a specialization of DOCTOR. This would perhaps best be paraphrased as "having properties of being both doctor-like and rich." Thus, there may be some merit in viewing classes as adjectival rather than nominal.