Understanding top-level ontological distinctions

Aldo Gangemi, Nicola Guarino, Claudio Masolo, Alessandro Oltramari

Abstract: The main goal of this paper is to present a systematic methodology for selecting general ontological categories to be used for multiple practical purposes. After a brief overview of our basic assumptions concerning the way a useful top-level ontology should be linked to language and cognition, we present a set of primitive relations that we believe play a foundational role. On the basis of these relations, we define a few formal properties, which combined together help to understand and clarify the nature of many common ontological distinctions.