Ontological and linguistic metamodelling revisited: A (failed) language use approach

1. Ontological and linguistic metamodelling revisited: A (failed) language use approach By Matt Selway KSE Lab Meeting – 6 March 2014 Eriksson, O., Henderson-Sellers, B., and Agerfalk, P.J. (2013), ‘Ontological and linguistic metamodelling revisited: A language use approach’, Information and Software Technology, vol. 55, no. 12, pp. 2099-2124. [DOI: 10.1016/j.infsof.2013.07.008]

2. Summary • Conceptual modelling needs to be based on: • Proper ontological foundations, and • Language use (primarily ‘speech-act theory’) • A well defined relationship between (domain) model elements and the real-world • Therefore, he should have been comparing conceptual modelling approaches and how they don’t do that, rather than beating on modelling frameworks

3. What he ends up with

4. UML 4-Level Model M3 (MOF) Class M2 (UML) classifier Attribute Class Instance M1 (user model) :Horse name = ‘Prancer’ Horse +name : String snapshot M0 (run-time instances) Prancer

5. Ontological/linguistic Paradox Orthogonal Classification Architecture Extrapolated Example linguistic instanceOf linguistic instanceOf Breed Metaclass Breed Metaclass ontological instanceOf ontological instanceOf ontological instanceOf O2 M2 O2 linguistic instanceOf linguistic instanceOf Collie Class Collie Class ontological instanceOf ontological instanceOf ontological instanceOf O1 M1 O1 O0 O0 M0 linguistic instanceOf linguistic instanceOf Lassie Object Lassie Object

6. Ontological/linguistic Paradox Orthogonal Classification Architecture Extrapolated Example linguistic instanceOf linguistic instanceOf Breed Metaclass Breed Metaclass both instanceOf ontological instanceOf ontological instanceOf M3 M1 O2 linguistic instanceOf linguistic instanceOf linguistic instanceOf Collie Class Collie Class ontological instanceOf ontological instanceOf ontological instanceOf M2 O1 M1 M1 O0 M2 linguistic instanceOf linguistic instanceOf Lassie Object Lassie Object

7. Language Use/Speech-act Theory (1) • Important aspects of language use: • Context • Identification • Sentence/Proposition types (assertion, command, declaration, etc) • Different usages/meanings of a word • Etc. • Example for modelling Breed-Collie-Lassie: • Lassie is a Dog • Lassie is a Collie • Collie is a Breed

8. Language Use/Speech-act Theory (2) • Lassie is Tall • The Tall Dog • *Lassie is Collie • *The Collie Dog • He tries to prescribe the different usages/meanings of ‘is’ to ‘is a’ • This is invalid because ‘is a’ actually exemplifies one of the meanings of ‘is’ • Therefore, his argument is incorrect

9. UFO-based Argument Mixin Universal Moment Universal Sortal Universal Sortal Universal subtypes characterises linguistic instanceOf linguistic instanceOf linguistic instanceOf linguistic instanceOf M2 M2 M1 M1 subclass of partitions Dog Collie Dog Breed ontological instanceOf ontological instanceOf ontological instanceOf Breed ? O1 O1 O0 O0 functional attribute value mapping Lassie Lassie Collie (ignoring the linguistic instance-of for the O0 layer for simplicity)

10. So we’re back to the original problem (1) Mixin Universal Moment Universal Sortal Universal subtypes characterises linguistic instanceOf linguistic instanceOf linguistic instanceOf M2 M1 subclass of partitions Dog Collie (1) Breed ontological instanceOf ontological instanceOf O1 What’s the relationship? O0 functional attribute value mapping Lassie Collie (2)

11. So we’re back to the original problem (2) Mixin Universal Moment Universal Sortal Universal subtypes characterises linguistic instanceOf linguistic instanceOf linguistic instanceOf M2 M1 ontological instanceOf Breed O2 subclass of partitions Dog Collie O1 ontological instanceOf O0 Lassie