Toward an Open-Source Foundation Ontology Representing the Longman's Defining Vocabulary: The COSMO Ontology OWL Version

The COSMO foundation ontology is being developed to test the hypothesis that there are a relatively small number (under 10,000) of primitive ontology elements that are sufficient to serve as the building blocks for any number of more specialized ontology elements representing concepts and terms used in any computer application. Finding evidence for this hypothesis would suggest that a promising tactic to achieve Semantic Interoperability among computer applications is to focus effort on the common foundation ontology to that ontology that contains those primitive elements. This will constrain the size of the ontology on which agreement is required, to the minimum that will support accurately relating domain and application ontologies to each other. The rationale, methodology and current status of this project is reported here. Index Terms – Foundation ontology, conceptual primitives, COSMO, semantic interoperability, common ontology, ontology mapping, Longman, defining vocabulary.