Quantitative/Qualitative Question Trees

INTRODUCTION: Questions have a fundamental role in human and natural sciences. Many fields in human and natural sciences explore their subject matters through different kinds of questions. The team of the Ontology of Questions aims at providing a philosophical analysis and categorization of questions (except rhetorical and ironic ones), from different academic areas. Our categorization is based on certain properties such as linguistic patterns, formal structures and semantic representations. As a result, we devised a taxonomy of questions formed by several trees. These trees are composed of a root node which describes what kind of questions is focused on, and the sub-branches are specializations of the root node. Our ongoing project aims at defining a complexity score for questions pertaining to scientific and academic studies, based on the number of steps that are followed in order to reach an answer to the question. It should be emphasized that we are not concerned with the answer to the question itself but with the effort to reach this answer. If the complexity level of a question is too high, it means that this question cannot be answered with today's technology and resources. My part of our work categorizes questions in terms of being immeasurable and/or context-dependent, and measurable. As a result, a Qualitative/Quantitative Question classification has emerged. This classification if formed by two trees, one for Qualitative Questions, and another for Quantitative Questions. Qualitative Questions address a subjective point of view which is credible in a context that is observer dependent, context dependent, modifiable across contexts [6]. The corresponding branch has several sub-branches: Value-based, Norm-based, and Characteristics. Value-based qualitative questions address intrinsic or extrinsic unwritten principles of behavior, and this sub-branch has two further sub-branches: event-based which concerns actions and behaviors, and element-based which focus on the individuals or particulars such as the actor or the doer of an action, or a patient. Value-based questions can be subcategorized as: figurative, if they represent what something symbolizes; literal, if they address the properties of inanimate beings; proper, if they address specific individuals; and conceptual, if they address common nouns. All those four kind of questions can also be categorized as: elementary, if they ask information about one entity; comparative,, if they take two entities into consideration; and superlative, if they deal with more than two entities. Event-based questions can be ethical or political event-based. Examples of ethical event-based questions include: " Who is …