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: 1.Proper ontological foundations, and 2.Language use (primarily ‘speech-act theory’) 3.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 Real-world (M0) M1 (domain model) Concepts/Classes (O1)Individuals/Instances (O0) Unified Foundational Ontology (M2, Linguistic)

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

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

6. M1M3 M2 M1 Ontological/linguistic Paradox Orthogonal Classification Architecture Extrapolated Example Breed Collie Lassie Metaclass Class Object O2 O1 O0 ontological instanceOf ontological instanceOf linguistic instanceOf linguistic instanceOf linguistic instanceOf Breed Collie Lassie Metaclass Class Object ontological instanceOf ontological instanceOf linguistic instanceOf linguistic instanceOf linguistic instanceOf both instanceOf ontological instanceOf linguistic instanceOf

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

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

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