Combining three Ways of Conveying Knowledge: Modularization of Domain, Terminological, and Linguistic Knowledge in Ontologies

Recently, an overall trend towards increasing complexity of ontologies could be observed, not only in terms of domain modeling, where the complexity should correspond to the information to be modeled, but also as regards the addition of further information, which could be modeled as external resources to the domain model and linked to its relevant elements. This concerns the addition of terminological and linguistic information to the description of classes and properties of ontologies. To respond to this development, we propose a functional approach to the modularization of ontologies, based on terminological, linguistic, and conceptual functions each module fulfills. Only the conceptual elements and their structural properties should remain in the domain model, whereas the formalized terminology and linguistics are described in independent modules referencing the domain models. We provide examples of such complexity in Knowledge Representation systems, discuss related work, and present our approach to modularization in detail.