Dictonary¶

A / an¶

English indefinite article a/an indicates some unspecified individual of a given concept. Individuals start with capital letter and are never preceeded by a/an. Concepts start with small letter and can be preceeded by a/an. Variables appear in semantic rules. When a variable occurs for the first time it is preceeded by a/an and later by the.

Different use cases of variables in semantic rules are summed up in the table below.

Variable pattern	Use case
a/the class-name	denotes variables assigned to a class/concept
a/the thing	represents an instance of the top concept “owl:Thing” and thus any variable in the SR-CE sentence.
a/the class-name(n)/thing(n)	different numbers in parenthesis mark more variables of the same type.

Example: Here concepts are preceeded by ‘a’, referring to an unspecified earlier individual of a given concept.

Sophie is a giraffe.
Leo is a lion.

Example: Word ‘every’ is used to refer to all individuals of given concept, word ‘a’ refers to some unspecified individual of given concept.

Every giraffe is an animal.
Every lion is an animal.

Example: In the semantic rule below, there is one variable ‘person’.

If a person has-age-in-years greater-or-equal-to 18 then the person is an adult-person.

Example: In the semantic rule below, there is a variable which could be anything.

If a thing is a person then the thing has-species-name equal-to 'homo-sapiens'.

Example: In the semantic rule below, there are two variables ‘person’.

If a person(1) has-parent a person(2) and the person(2) is a female-person then the person(1) has-mother the person(2).

And¶

Conjunction and connects two phrases into complex phrase. It can be used to make an intersection of concepts or to introduce intersection complex conditions into semantic rules.

The examples show how to use conjuction and.

The concept of a young male man is an intersection of concepts of a young thing, a male thing and a person.

Something is a young-male-man if-and-only-if-it is a young-thing
that is a male-thing takand is a person.

In the ‘if’ statement below the antecedent clause is complex. It could also be the case for the consequent clause.

If a person (1) has-parent a person (2) and the person (2) is a
female-person then the person (1) has-mother the person (2) .

And-or¶

Conjunction and-or connects two phrases into complex phrase. It can be used to make a union of concepts or to introduce complex conditions into semantic rules. The complex condition is satisfied if at least one of its conditions is fulfilled.

The examples show how to use conjuction and-or.

The concept of a child is an intersection of concepts of boy and girl.

Something is a child if-and-only-if-it is a boy and-or is a girl.

Anything¶

Anything refers to the pairwise disjoint concept set. if is usedc in pair with or-something-else.

The example shows how to use the keyword.

Example: The concepts of cat, dog and human are pairwise disjoint. However, there may exist individuals that are none of them.

Anything either is a cat or is a dog or is a human
or-something-else.

Above sentence is equivalent to the following set of sentences:

No cat is a dog.
No cat is a human.
No dog is a human.

As-well-as¶

As-well-as allows to define complext data types facets.

The example shows how to use the keyword.

Every top-model has-name (some string value) as-well-as (some
integer value).

Be (is/are)¶

The negated verb to be and its conjugated forms are used for concept inclusion or concept equivalence. With that verb a hierarchy of concepts is constructed or an individual is placed in the hierarchy of concept (by saying what concepts the individual actually is). Concepts and individuals are defined when their names are used in at least one sentence.

The verb to be combined with the word by is used to create a role inversion. It is conceptually equivalent to passive voice.

Those examples show how to use the verb to be to create a hierarchy of concepts and individuals and make role inversion.

Example: Individuals are named and placed in the hierarchy of concepts.

Sophie is a giraffe.
Leo is a lion.

Example: A simple hierarchy of concepts. Lion and giraffe are inclusive of the concept of an animal.

Every giraffe is an animal.
Every lion is an animal.

Example: A simple hierarchy of concepts. Concepts of a young male man and a boy are equivalent.

Something is a boy if-and-only-if-it is a young-male-man.

Example: A more complex hierarchy of concepts. The concept of a young male man is an intersection of concepts of a young thing, a male thing and a person.

Something is a young-male-man if-and-only-if-itis a young-thing
that is a male-thing and is a person.

Example: Role inversion. The last two sentences are equivalent.

Every child is loved by parent.
Mary is loved by Tom.
Tom loves Mary.

Be not (is not /are not)¶

The negated verb not to be and its conjugated forms are used for negating a concept or giving a complement concept.

Those examples show how to use the negated verb not to be to negate a concept or to give a concept complement to it.

Example: Everything in the world is an adult-thing or a young-thing. The concepts are complement.

Something is a young-thing if-and-only-if-it is not an
adult-thing.

Example: The classes of young-thing and adult-thing are disjoint. However, there might exist a thing that is neither of them.

Every-single-thing that is a young-thing is not an adult-thing.
Every young-thing is not an adult-thing.

By¶

The verb to be and word by is used to create a role inversion. It is conceptually equivalent to passive voice.

The example below shows how to use role inversion.

Example: Role inversion. Last two sentences are equivalent.

Every child is loved by a parent.
Mary is loved by Tom.
Tom loves Mary.

Less-than/more-than/at-least/at-most/differet-than/zero/one/two…¶

Keywords for indicating property cardinality restriction. They deal with allowed and defined number of listed properties (roles). They can be used to specify the number of individuals involved in the restriction. Indeed, classes can be defined depending on the number of listed properties. It is possible to declare a maximum, minimum or exact number of listed properties in domain. Cardinality restrictions can also be applied to the number of data attributes that a concept or instance has.

Keywords	Meaning
less-than	<
more-than	>
at-most	≤
at-least	≥
different-than	≠

These examples show how to put restrictions on properties cardinality numbers - maximum, minimum or exact.

Example: The sentence defines the maximum number of allowed parents.

Every person is-a-child-of at-most two parents.

Example: Defines the minimum number of allowed parents.

Every person is-a-child-of at-least two parents.

Example: Defines the exact number of allowed parents.

Every person is-a-child-of two parents.

Example: Cardinality restriction about data attribute.

Every cat has-name at-most one (some string value).

Greater-than/lower-than/greater-or-equal-to/lower-or-equal-to/different-from¶

The construction greater-than … assigns a range to a data attribute. The names of the keywords are summmed up in the table below.

Keywords	Meaning
greater-than	<	maxExclusive
lower-than	>	minExclusive
greater-or-equal-to	≤	maxInclusive
lower-or-equal-to	≥	minInclusive
different-from	≠	minExclusive & maxExclusive
equal-to	=	.

Those examples show how to assign data attributes.

Every adult-person has-age greater-or-equal-to 18.

Do-not/does-not¶

The auxiliary verb do-not or does-not negates a role or data property.

Those examples show how to negate roles and data properties.

Example: Mary loves nobody.

Mary does-not love a thing.

Either … or …¶

The construction either … or … is used to express a disjoint union or enumerate individuals of a given concept.

Those examples show how to the either … or … construction.

Example: The concepts of child, young thing, middle age thing and old thing are all pairwise disjoint. Their union is a person.

Something is a person if-and-only-if-it is a child, is a
young-thing, is a middle-age-thing or is an old-thing.

Example: Enumerates individuals of a concept.

Something is a my-birthday-guests if-and-only-if-it is either
John, Mary or Bill.

Equal-to¶

The construction equal-to assigns a data attribute. FluentEditor currently supports the following data types: integer, real, boolean, string and date-time.

Those examples show how to assign data attributes.

John has-name equal-to 'John'.
Lenka borns-on-date equal-to 1975-10-11.

Be (is/are)¶

The word every refers to all individuals of a given concept. Concepts and individuals are defined when their names are used in at least one sentence.

Those examples show how to use the word every.

Example: A simple hierarchy of concepts. Lion and giraffe are inclusive of the concept of an animal.

Every giraffe is an animal.
Every lion is an animal.

Example: A simple relation rule.

Every giraffe eats a plant.

Every-single-thing¶

Every-single-thing indicates all individuals in the open-world assumption. Individuals may be already defined in the ontology or not defined but possibly existing. It is often used for writing axioms about roles.

Those examples show how to use every-single-thing declaration to indicate all existing individuals and specify more information about them. Combined with that keyword, it can be used for writing more complex rules.

Example: All the individuals in the world are specified with the role ‘is-married-to’ something.

Every-single-thing is-married-to something.

Example: If something has a wife, then it must be a person. Range of is-a-wife-of property is a person class

Every-single-thing is-a-wife-of nothing-but persons.

Example: Being someone’s wife indicates being a woman. Domain of is-a-wife-of property is a woman class.

Every-single-thing that is-a-wife-of is a woman.

Example: Only people have names. If something has a data property value called name, then it is a person.

Every-single-thing that has-name (some value) is a person.

Example: Axiom on a role. ‘to be part of’ is reflexive.

Every-single-thing is-part-of itself.

… for … execute <? … ?>¶

The construction … for … execute <? … ?> is used to express active rules, which are a special case of SWRL rules. If an active rule is fulfilled, some code/simple program can be executed. The concepts listed after for are used as variables, while execute <? … ?> is followed be the code to be performed.

Different use cases of variables in semantic rules are summed up in the table below.

Those examples show how to write active rules with the construction … for … execute <? … ?>.

Example: Active rule for an ontology monitoring the state of IT infrastructure.

If a server is connected by a thing and the thing has-status
Inoperable then for the server and the thing execute
<?
KnowledgeInsert(string.Format("{0} is connected by {1} and
has-status Inoperable.", server, thing)); WriteMessage("[" +
DateTime.Now + "] " + server + " is inoperable due to " + thing +
".");
?>.

Exists¶

Exists is equivalent to is something or is a thing. However, the first may sound more natural sometimes. This is redundant in CNL, where a concept is defined simply by using it. However, it might be usable in translations from OWL to FE CNL.

Those examples show how to use the keyword exists.

If John exists then John is a living-thing.

If-and-only-if¶

If-and-only-if expresses biconditional logical connective between two statements. The statements should contain X/Y variables. It is used for making axioms on properties/roles (such as have-child or have-sibling).

Those examples show how make axioms on properties

Example: has-child is reverse of has-parent.

X has-child Y if-and-only-if Y has-parent X.

Example: has-sibling is symmetric.

X has-sibling Y if-and-only-if Y has-sibling X.

If-and-only-if-it¶

If-and-only-if-it expresses biconditional logical connective between two statements. In the construction Something is … if-and-only-if-it … equivalent concepts are introduced. The concequent concept can be a complex concept. It allows to define new concept as intersection, union etc. of old ones. The construction can me modified to give complement concept.

Those examples show how to define concepts.

Example: Equivalent concepts.

Something is a boy if-and-only-if-it is a young-male-man.

Example: Concept intersection.

Something is a young-male-man if-and-only-if-it is a young-thing
and is a male-thing and is a person.

Example: Everything in the world is an adult-thing or a young-thing. The concepts are complement.

Something is a young-thing if-and-only-if-it is not an
adult-thing.

If-and-only-if-it-either¶

If-and-only-if-it-either expresses biconditional logical connective between two statements. In the construction Something is … if-and-only-if-it-either … a concept is defined as a disjoint union of other concepts/individuals. It refers to OWL DisjointUnion.

The example shows how to define concepts as disjoint unions.

Example: The classes: child, young, middle-age and old are disjoint and their sum creates a class person.

   Something is a person **if-and-only-if-it-either** is a child, is
   a young-thing, is a middle-age-thing or is an old-thing.

This is equivalen to the following set of sentences:

Something is a person if-and-only-if-it is a child and-or is a
young-thing and-or is a middle-age-thing and-or is an old-thing.
No child is a young-thing.
No child is a middle-age-thing.
No child is an old-thing.
No young-thing is a middle-age-thing.
No young-thing is an old-thing.
No middle-age-thing is anold-thing.

Example: We enumerate all individuals of a given concept. All individuals are disjoint.t.

Something is a my-birthday-guest if-and-only-if-it-either is
Monica, is Emilia, is Julia or is Anna.

Example: A similar construction can be used for enumerating the individuals of a given concept. However, it does not imply that the individuals are disjoint. Concept cannot be enumerated in such way.

Something is a my-birthday-guest if-and-only-if-it is either
Monica, Emilia, Julia or Anna.
Emilia is Julia.

If … then …¶

The construction If … then … is used for making an implication (semantic rule). The construction can be used for two purposes: SWRL rules and axioms about properties/roles. In SWRL rules about concept and roles variables appear with a/the prefix. There is a special class of semantic rules - axioms about roles in which X/Y variables are used. Both antecedent and consequent clauses in the implication can be complex sentences.

Different use cases of variables in semantic rules are summed up in the table below.

Variable pattern	Use case
a/the class-name	denotes variables assigned to a class/concept
a/the thing	represents an instance of the top concept “owl:Thing” and thus any variable in the SR-CE sentence.
a/the class-name(n)/thing(n)	different numbers in parenthesis mark more variables of the same type.

Those examples show how to write semantic rules with the construction If … then ….

Example: Axiom about role. Semantic rule for general role inclusion.

If X is-proper-part-of Y then X is-part-of Y.

Example: In the semantic rule below, there is one variable ‘person’.

If a person is-year-old greater-or-equal-to 18 then the person is
an adult-person.

Example: In the semantic rule below, there is one variable which could be anything.

If a thing is a person then the thing has-name (some string
value).

Is-(not-)the-same-as¶

Is-the-same-as expresses that two individuals are the same. Is-not-the-same-as expresses that two individuals are different. It refers to OWL sameAs axiom. It should not be replaced with expressions is or is not.

Those examples show how to use the keywords and why they should not be replaced with is or is not.

Example: A cat and its owner are different.

If a man has-pet a cat then the man is-not-the-same-as the cat.

Example: Here, the person is the same individual as the human mentioned in the antecedent part of the rule.

If a person has-synonym a human then the person is-the-same-as the
human.

Example: Here, the consequent clause the person is the human means that there exists (somewhere) some unspecified individual of human class which is the same individual as the person mentioned.

If a person has-synonym a human then the person is the human.

Is-unique-if¶

Is-unique-if defines a key for a class. Keys are for uniquely identifying an individual. The open-world assumption does not imply that some things (e.g. concepts, instances) are disjoint if they are named differently. The uniqueness of two individuals can be inferred from rules. If two named instances of the class coincide on values for each of key properties, then these two individuals are the same. With more complex construction, two individuals can be reasoned to be different from each other.

OWL 1 does not provide a means to define keys. The OWL 2 construct HasKey allows keys to be defined for a given class.

Those examples show how to define and use keys in CNL.

Example: Tom and Mark can be theoretically the same individual.

Tom is a man.
Mark is a man.

Example: Tom and Mark are reasoned to be different individuals.

Every X that is a man is-unique-if X has-id equal-to something.
Every man has-id one (some integer value).
Mark is a man and has-id equal-to 11.
Tom is a man and has-id equal-to 12.

Example: Tom and Mark are reasoned to be the same individuals.

Every X that is a man is-unique-if X has-id equal-to something.
Every man has-id one (some integer value).
Mark is a man and has-id equal-to 11.
Tom is a man and has-id equal-to 11.

It¶

It Is a variable for something in semantic rules.

The example shows how to use the keyword.

Example: Two sentences below are equivalent.

Every cat is an animal.
If something is a cat then it is an animal.

Itself¶

Itself is used when the subject and the object of the role are the same. If every subject of a concept acts with a role on itself, then the role is reflexive for the concept.

Those examples show how to use and how not to use the keyword itself.

Leo likes itself.

Example: The role ‘to like’ is reflexive for men.

Every man likes itself.

Example: The role of parent is irreflexive.

Nothing is-parent-of itself.

Can/can-not/must/must-not/should/should-not¶

Modal expressions are used for stating restrictions on the knowledge. In open world assumption the validity of the statement should not change after introducing additional knowledge. Therefore the validity of some statements is unknown. However, additional requirements for the ontology are stated with modal expressions. This allows user to express knowledge about knowledge. Modal expressions do not have a direct representation with OWL. They are an advanced feature supported by FluentEditor. FE now supports only simple requirements, i.e. Every (class-name) (modality) (role/date-property) (value). The reasoner checks if all modal expressions are fulfilled. Results of validation shall be highlighted in different colors. Green means all requirements are fulfilled. Red means an error, that some requirements are not fulfilled. It appears when requirements with must or can-not expression is not fulfilled. Yellow means a warning. It appears when requirements with should, should-not, can, or must-not expression is not fulfilled.

The examples below show how to use modal expressions to specify knowledge about knowledge.

Every patient must have-age (some integer value).
Every patient can have-medical-history (some string value).
Every application must have-status a thing that is either Operable or Inoperable.
Every patient can-not have-age greater-than 200.

No¶

The word no is used for negating a concept.

Those examples show how to use no to negate a concept.

Example: The classes of young-thing and adult-thing are disjoint. However, there might exist a thing that is neither of them.

No young-thing is an adult-thing.

None¶

None is a short version of nothing-but things that are nothing.

The example shows how to use the keyword.

Example: Two sentences below are equivalent.

Every root-folder has-parent none.
Every root-folder has-parent nothing-but things that are nothing.

Nothing¶

Nothing refers to the bottom concept (empty set). It describes concepts that cannot have any individuals. It is used for specifying restrictions on the roles.

Those examples show how to use the keyword nothing.

Example: The role of parent is irreflexive.

Nothing is-parent-of itself.

Example: Two sentences below are equivalent.

Nothing is-part-of at-least two things.
Every-single-thing is-part-of at-most one thing.

Example: A more complex restriction on roles.

Nothing is a dead-body that has-inside a living-thing.

Nothing-but¶

Nothing-but gives restriction on range of a property (role) or data type of a data property. It is so called universal role restriction.

Those examples show how to restrict range of a role or data type of a data property.

Example: If something has a wife, then it must be a person. Range of is-a-wife-of property is a person class

Every-single-thing is-a-wife-of nothing-but persons.

Example: Names are words. The name property can be only of type string.

Every-single-thing has-name nothing-but (some string value).

Or-something-else¶

Or-something-else refers to the disjoint concept statement that starts with Anything keyword. This statement allows to enumerate pairwise disjoint concepts.

The example shows how to use the keyword.

Example: The concepts of cat, dog and human are pairwise disjoint. However, there may exist individuals that are none of them.

Anything either is a cat or is a dog or is a human
or-something-else.

Something¶

The word something has different meanings depending on the context. It represents all individuals (top concept). It represents any data value of any data type. It starts a general rule about all things. It can be used for defining a new concept as an intersection or union of other concepts or for stating that two concepts are equivalent.

This example shows how to use the keyword something in different ways.

Example: Top concept, equivalent to a thing.

John is something.
John is a thing.

Example: Any data value of any data type.

Every X that is a man is-unique-if X has-id equal-to something.

Example: Concept equivalence.

Something is a boy if-and-only-if-it is a young-male-man.

Example: Concept intersection.

Something is a young-male-man if-and-only-if-it is a young-thing
and is a male-thing and is a person.

Example: Concept union.

Something is a child if-and-only-if-it is a boy and-or is a girl.

(some boolean/datetime/integer/string value)¶

These keywords refer to a data property of a specified type (see table).

Keywords	Meaning
(some value)	equivalent to rdfs:Literal. This can take any data type but without knowing what type this data is.
(some integer value)	equivalent to xsd:int.
(some real value)	equivalent to xsd:double.
(some boolean value)	equivalent to xsd:boolean.
(some string value)	equivalent to xsd:string.
(some datetime value)	equivalent to xsd:datetime.

The example shows how to specify data type of a data property.

Example: We specify the data type of name to be string and the data type of age to be integer.

Every person has-name nothing-but (some string value).
Every person has-age nothing-but (some integer value).

That¶

The word that starts further specification (restriction) of a concept. Restriction can be arbitrary complex. Every-single-thing that … construction is used frequently and means the whole class of things satisfying the restriction.

This example shows how to use the construction that … in CNL sentences.

Example: Restrictions on the concept of application.

Every application must have-status a thing that is either Operable
or Inoperable.

Example: Every-single-thing that … construction occurs quite often in CNL. Here, it refers to the whole class of young things.

Every-single-thing that is a young-thing is not an adult-thing.

that-has-length¶

The construction that-has-length restricts length of a data attribute.

The example below shows how to restrict length of a data attribute.

Every cat has-name that-has-length lower-or-equal-to 10.

That-matches-pattern¶

The construction that-matches-pattern defines string attributes as regular expression patterns, both in ontology and questions. It is a new feature in CogniPy. This functionality allows to specify not only one particular string as attribute, but also a whole set (or class) of strings defined by regular expression. This keyword may appear insted of equal-to or (some value) keyword. It can be used in questions.

The example below shows how to use regular expressions in CNL.

Example: Rule for female names in Polish language - it must end with ‘a’ sound.

Every-single-thing that has-name that-matches-pattern '.*a' is a
female-person.

The¶

English definite article the indicates some specified individual of a given concept. An individual of a given concept is specified by mentioning it earlier in the sentence. Variables appear in semantic rules. When a variable occurs for the first time it is preceeded by a/an and later by the.

Different use cases of variables in semantic rules are summed up in the table below.

THE-” “ is used to define an instance with a custom identifier, other that combination of words starting with capital letter and numbers separated by dashes.

Variable pattern	Use case
a/the class-name	denotes variables assigned to a class/concept
a/the thing	represents an instance of the top concept “owl:Thing” and thus any variable in the SR-CE sentence.
a/the class-name(n)/thing(n)	different number in parenthesis marks more variables of the same type.

This example shows how to use definite article the while introducing variables into semantic rules.

Example: In the semantic rule below, there is one variable ‘person’.

If a person is-year-old greater-or-equal-to 18 then the person is
an adult-person.

Example: In the semantic rule below, there is one variable which could be anything.

If a thing is a` person then the thing has-name (some string
value).

Example: In the semantic rule below, there are two variables ‘person’.

If a person(1) has-parent a person(2) and the person(2) is a
female-person then the person(1) has-mother the person(2).

Example: Custom instance identifier.

THE-"K22 P2"

The-one-and-the-only¶

The-one-and-the-only is used to define a class which has only one instance. It refers to an instance of an concept that defines the concept and is the only instance of the concept.

The example shows how to use the keyword.

Example: The first sentence is equivalent to the combination of the second and the third sentence.

The-one-and-only singlethon is a cat.
The singlethon is a cat.
Every singlethon is the singlethon.

Thing/things¶

The word thing represents an instance of the top concept “owl:Thing” and thus any variable in the SR-CE sentence. Used as a variable in semantic rules. If more variables of type thing appear, they can be enumerated by thing(n).

Those examples show how to use the word thing in semantic rules.

Example: In the semantic rule below, there is one variable which could be anything.

If a thing is a person then the thing has-name (some string
value).

Example: In the semantic rule below, there are two variables ‘thing’.

If a thing(1) hosts a thing(2) and the thing(2) hosts an
application then the thing(1) hosts the application.