RE: pun in ontolingua KB

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Message-id: <199406202336.AA20491@quark.isi.edu>
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Date: Mon, 20 Jun 1994 16:36:27 -0800
To: gruber@HPP.Stanford.EDU, "Benjamin J. Kuipers" <kuipers@cs.utexas.edu>
From: macgregor@ISI.EDU
Subject: RE: pun in ontolingua KB
Cc: <ontolingua@HPP.Stanford.EDU>, srkb@cs.umbc.edu
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Regarding Tom Gruber's recent note:

>  This is the nature of a flat namespace and a context-free syntax.
>  ...
>  I think this gets at a deep issue for knowledge sharing.

Tom is mixing two different issues.  One issue contrasts the crispness
of formal semantics with the relative lack thereof in natural language.
The other issue highlights the simplicity that results when one's
KR formalism lacks a context facility (i.e., has a flat namespace).

In the context of knowledge sharing, I would say that having a formal
semantics is a feature, while not having a context mechanism is a bug.

- Bob


Robert M. MacGregor                                     macgregor@isi.edu
USC/ISI, 4676 Admiralty Way, Marina del Rey, CA 90292      (310) 822-1511