Base Concepts in the African Languages Compared to Upper Ontologies and the WordNet Top Ontology

Abstract

Ontologies, and in particular upper ontologies, are foundational to the establishment of the Semantic Web. Upper ontologies are used as equivalence formalisms between domain specific ontologies. Multilingualism brings one of the key challenges to the development of these ontologies. Fundamental to the challenges of defining upper ontologies is the assumption that concepts are universally shared. The approach to developing linguistic ontologies aligned to upper ontologies, particularly in the non-Indo-European language families, has highlighted these challenges. Previously two approaches to developing new linguistic ontologies and the influence of these approaches on the upper ontologies have been well documented. These approaches are examined in a unique new context: the African, and in particular, the Bantu languages. In particular, we address the following two questions: Which approach is better for the alignment of the African languages to upper ontologies? Can the concepts that are linguistically shared amongst the African languages be aligned easily with upper ontology concepts claimed to be universally shared?

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