[topicmapmail] Conceptual Graphs are Step 6

[Murray Altheim]

Dan Corwin wrote:
> * Murray Altheim wrote:
>
>>Peter Becker, myself, and a few others have been trying for several
>>years now to nudge the CG community into providing a reasonable
>>specification for Conceptual Graphs.
> 
> Lots of luck, Murray.  Your audience there is logicians - who love to
> argue, but not over specs.  Nonetheless, what I see on the web does a
> commendable job of explaining CGs - with one glaring omission (below).

Yes, so I've noticed. :-)

As for explaining CGs, I don't have an issue with any lack of
documentation. I've got both of Sowa's books plus all the online
documentation, papers, etc. What I see lacking is a formal model
for CGs that can be used to develop software, markup languages,
etc. in a way that is demonstrably (provably) linked to that
model, the way an XML processor can be tested against the EBNF.

>>... there's no way to build a CG tool that follows any specification
>>... as the CG spec isn't complete enough.
> 
> 
> The TM community and specs might actually help out here, by absorbing
> the CG paradigm into a new XTM ontology of topic and association types
> any TM engine could import.  TMs could then interoperate with CGs, and
> CGs get a new interchange format ISO has already blessed - XTM 1.0  :-)

Well, it wouldn't be CGs, but it might be something similar. If we
take that approach, I'm actually more comfortable than labeling it
CGs (I'm not willing to forego truth for marketing - I wouldn't
have done well in advertising...).

> Earlier, I posted this link for CG's case frame roles.  As a spec, it
> was last modified in 2000, and it has John Sowa's KR book behind it:
> 
>    [1] http://users.bestweb.net/%7Esowa/ontology/thematic.htm
> 
> I feel [1] is a decent spec on most of the role types we'd require,
> and is certainly ample for an informal debate on this thread about
> what future changes or extensions (if any) we'd like to make to it.

Are you talking about specifically Figure 3, "Thematic roles as subtypes
the four types of participants", that kind of thing?

> To augment completeness, this useful introduction to CGs gives us a
> handy way to learn and debate what ELSE our CG ontology might require.
> I'd guess that its "Module I" covers pretty much all we'd need:
> 
>    [2] http://www.huminf.aau.dk/cg/Module_I/1142.html
> 
> In particular, link [2] models *the same* topics as link [1], but also
> adds a nearby tutorial, plus links into its sub-sections and a useful
> glossary.  I suggest we adopt all these links as temporary PSIs.

The real issue I start to have with traveling down this path is
that to a great degree all we've done is start our own SUO project.
I ended my participation in that mailing list last year, and don't
particularly want to re-tread the steps they've taken, which after
years is not getting any closer to fruition. Though as you say, we
may have an advantage in not being logicians. :-)

>>To put it bluntly, I don't think CGs are
>>any more ready for TMs than TMs are ready for CGs. And XTM is just
>>syntax. I don't see that anything is going to "fall out" of this
>
> What *I expect* will fall out, in short order, is a valid CG ontology,
> cast in temporary PSIs and today's XTM specs, which is *equivalent* to
> the CG *graph* notation as spec'ed by [1] & [2], and does *no damage*
> to the idea that FOL rules might later infer things from such graphs.
> 
> A side benefit of this XTM ontology - assuming we build it - would be to
> totally remove "FOL" from CGs, and thus dispel a persistently confusing
> claim about CGs - that they somehow intrinsically involve FOL.

Heh. I kinda like that notion in my pennies-on-the-tracks way. That
I happen to agree with what you're saying provides some interest in
seeing it through.

> In fact, [1] really has nothing at all do with FOL, nor has it ever.
> It is a paradigm that arose in the *linguistic* community, predating
> the creation of CGs by dozens of years.  The CGs we know have merely
> adopted the variation of that paradigm printed in John Sowa's KR book.
> Many competitors once existed, but his is now *a* standard.  So is:
> 
> [3] http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~framenet/  (browse its examples)

Well, not a standard at all. In fact, it's unlikely to ever become
one since John is (from what I understand) no longer pursuing any
kind of CG standardization. It has the same authority as anything
you or I might write, i.e., all based on personal reputation.

I must admit (somewhat sheepishly) that in looking down the list of
people on the FrameNet site, I'm hardly familiar with any of them.
Any pointers on what are the best papers, best summaries, etc.? If
we're going to work on this together I'd like to get up to speed on
some of the same things as you've looked into.

> CGs do *express* such linguistic models (case frames) in FOL terms by
> stating *facts* about roles and associations of case frame instances.
> This lets inferences be made later - *iff* related FOL rules get added.
> 
> Big deal!  Anyone can express *exactly* those same facts in XTM, SQL,
> HTML, MS Excel or a text file.  What the CG specs manage to omit is
> clarity on this point.  They suggest not that FOL is a *nice tool* for
> processing CGs - it may well be - but that it is essential.  It ain't.

Dan, where have you been all my life? :-)  (nice to hear someone say
what I've long believed)

> In fact, CGs are no more (or less) related to FOL than to ASCII is.
> 
> But under the NLP theories that led to them, *some* kind of executable
> logic does need to be driven by case frames.  FOL is one option, but
> I much prefer scripted topics, for which these PSIs already exist:
> 
> [4]  http://www.lexikos.com/psi/words/

This looks suspiciously similar to the ontology I've been building
in Ceryle... some of the Things certainly are identity matches (at
least at first glance).

> This thread is on CGs, but I will note in passing that WORDS scripts
> are their 2nd cousin.  Whichever notation gets used, this central truth
> emerges - at some point, English lexicons must become *executable*.
> 
> - - - - Building an executable lexicon from CGs
[...]
> - - - -  Using the above ontology at run time
[...]
> - - - -  Summing up
> 
> Jack, I believe that CGs really are "just topic maps" - or properly are
> just an ontology for topic maps.  Their only wrinkle is that messy bit
> involving "enhancements", which must be executable code.  Normally, I
> would say that such code resides at the TM application software level,
> well outside the realm of XTM, the DM, or the RM.  Do you agree?
> 
> Murray, do not expect to find many specs on such implications at the CG
> web site or anywhere else, as they are generally specific to particular
> domains and applications.  CGs as a tool are not yet mature or widely
> used enough to have built up a base of examples.  I hear some do exist,
> but only for "toy" vocabularies.  For example systems that do more, you
> need to search AI history, generally starting with SHRDLU, which was
> the first NLP system to drive an FOL back-end in human-like ways.  It
> was done by my grad school TA, Terry Winograd, in the early '70s.
> 
> This is way too long, and I'm soon off for a 3-day weekend.  I hope you
> enjoy yours, whatever its length, and maybe find time in it to mull over
> my A-B-C plan to map [1] and [2] into a portable XTM ontology.

Yes, I've found lots of things to think about, more than I can
respond to in one sitting.

I'm going to have a wiki up in a week or two (I hope), and perhaps
we can devote some space there to discussing this, such that the
results of our discussions gradually build up some documentation.
Does that sound like a reasonable plan of attack? The mailing list
works okay, but ideas tend to get lost into the archives to easily.

Murray

......................................................................
Murray Altheim                    http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK               .

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