Master Thesis defended Birzeit University on Constructing the Top Levels of the Arabic Ontology.

English | عربي

A master thesis “On Constructing the top levels of the Arabic Ontology” was defended in Thursday (13/2/2014) by Ms. Rana Rishmawi, which was under the supervision of Dr. Mustafa Jarrar, and committee members Dr. Bassem Sayrafi, Dr. Mahdi Arar, and Dr. Mudar Qassis.

The Arabic Ontology is a classification of the concepts of the Arabic terms, which is a necessary semantic resource for modern IT applications. This thesis contributes to constructing the top levels of the Arabic Ontology. The top-level concepts represent the most abstract concepts of the Arabic terms and linking them with well-formed semantic relations.
The presentation first gave an overview about the Arabic Ontology, which is an ongoing project in Sina Institute, at Birzeit University. And discussed the importance of building the top levels of the Arabic Ontology which is represented in governing the quality of the lower levels, as well as helping in the building process of the lower levels. It also presented the methodology used for constructing these top levels, and the classification methods that were used in order to classify the chosen most abstract concepts of the Arabic Language. The methodology included studying existing other upper-level ontologies, especially DOLCE, BFO and SUMO, as well as literature of Arab Philosophers.
The complexity of deciding the top-level concepts, is that these concepts are more abstract, and thus more application independent, and require deep investigation in order to be agreed upon. Such investigations need philosophical sense, rather than only linguistic and formal knowledge.