Reasoning with Inconsistent Ontologies: a general framework

Abstract

EU-IST Integrated Project (IP) IST-2003-506826 SEKT Deliverable D3.4.1.1 (WP3.4) This document is an informal deliverable provided to SEKT WP3 partners. In this document, a general framework for reasoning with inconsistent ontologies is proposed. An inconsistency reasoner is one which is able to return meaningful answers to queries, given an inconsistent on- tology. The formal definitions of soundness, meaningfulness, local completeness, and maximal completeness of an inconsistency reasoner are introduced. A pre-processing algorithm and a strategy for inconsistency reasoning based on linear extensions and selection functions are in- vestigated. This document also contains a chapter that discusses the design of reasoners with inconsistent ontologies (RIO). A RIO architecture, which is based on the DIG description logic interface, is proposed. Keyword list: ontology management, inconsistent ontologies, reasoning