Ontology language
In computer science and artificial intelligence, ontology languages are formal languages used to construct ontologies. They allow the encoding of knowledge about specific domains and often include reasoning rules that support the processing of that knowledge. Ontology languages are usually declarative languages, are almost always generalizations of frame languages, and are commonly based on either first-order logic or on description logic.
Classification of ontology languages
Classification by syntax
Traditional syntax ontology languages
- Ontolingua based on KIF
Markup ontology languages
These languages use a markup scheme to encode knowledge, most commonly with XML.
Ontology (information science)
In computer science and information science, an ontology is a formal naming and definition of the types, properties, and interrelationships of the entities that really or fundamentally exist for a particular domain of discourse. It is thus a practical application of philosophical ontology, with a taxonomy.
An ontology compartmentalizes the variables needed for some set of computations and establishes the relationships between them.
The fields of artificial intelligence, the Semantic Web, systems engineering, software engineering, biomedical informatics, library science, enterprise bookmarking, and information architecture all create ontologies to limit complexity and to organize information. The ontology can then be applied to problem solving.
Etymology and definition
The term ontology has its origin in philosophy and has been applied in many different ways. The word element onto- comes from the Greek ὤν, ὄντος, ("being", "that which is"), present participle of the verb εἰμί ("be"). The core meaning within computer science is a model for describing the world that consists of a set of types, properties, and relationship types. There is also generally an expectation that the features of the model in an ontology should closely resemble the real world (related to the object).
