DOLCE in OWL: The Core Theory

Foundational ontologies, like dolce (an ISO standard), are often implemented in applications via their formalisations in the OWL language. These OWL formalisations are approximations of the theory to cope with the limited expressivity of OWL. With this paper, we start presenting a core OWL2 module of dolce, and discuss how to extend it in different directions. After discussing earlier versions of dolce in first-order logic and in OWL, we present the architecture of our modular approach. We select a core fragment of dolce in OWL2 (termed “DOLCEbasicOWL”), which provides the main taxonomy and binary relations of the foundational ontology. Then, we discuss how to extend DOLCEbasicOWL with a module for expressing the 𝑛-ary relations of dolce (𝑛 > 2). After this, we give a proof that this OWL2 version is compatible with the original version of dolce. Finally, we illustrate the functioning of our OWL2 rendering by means of an example. We conclude by discussing a number of other modules to cope with other core concepts and specific domains.