Common Logic (CL) is a framework for a family of
logic languages, based on
first-order logic
First-order logic—also known as predicate logic, quantificational logic, and first-order predicate calculus—is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quanti ...
, intended to facilitate the exchange and transmission of
knowledge
Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is disti ...
in
computer-based systems.
The CL definition permits and encourages the development of a variety of different syntactic forms, called ''dialects''. A dialect may use any desired syntax, but it must be possible to demonstrate precisely how the concrete syntax of a dialect conforms to the abstract CL semantics, which are based on a
model theoretic interpretation. Each dialect may be then treated as a
formal language
In logic, mathematics, computer science, and linguistics, a formal language consists of words whose letters are taken from an alphabet and are well-formed according to a specific set of rules.
The alphabet of a formal language consists of s ...
. Once syntactic conformance is established, a dialect gets the CL semantics for free, as they are specified relative to the abstract syntax only, and hence are inherited by any conformant dialect. In addition, all CL dialects are equivalent (i.e., can be automatically translated to each other), although some may be more expressive than others.
In general, a less expressive subset of CL may be translated to a more expressive version of CL, but the reverse translation is only defined on a subset of the larger language.
The ISO Standard
Common Logic is published by
ISO as "ISO/IEC 24707:2007 - Information technology — Common Logic (CL): a framework for a family of logic-based languages". It is available for purchase from ISO's catalog, and is freely available from ISO's index of publicly available standards.
Common Logic Standard Second Edition
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The CL Standard includes specifications for three dialects, the Common Logic Interchange Format (CLIF) (Annex A), the Conceptual Graph Interchange Format (CGIF) (Annex B), and an XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. ...
-based notation for Common Logic (XCL) (Annex C).
The semantics of these dialects are defined in the Standard by their translation to the abstract syntax and semantics of Common Logic.
Many other logic-based languages could also be defined as subsets of CL by means of similar translations; among them are the RDF and OWL
Owls are birds from the order Strigiformes (), which includes over 200 species of mostly solitary and nocturnal birds of prey typified by an upright stance, a large, broad head, binocular vision, binaural hearing, sharp talons, and feathers a ...
languages, which have been defined by the W3C.
The ISO standard's development began in June 2003 under Working Group 2 (Metadata) of Sub-Committee 32 (Data Interchange) under ISO/IEC JTC1, and was completed in October 2007. A technical corrigendum, correcting some errors in the original standard, is being prepared at the time being.
Implementations
COLORE
is a repository of Common Logic Ontologies
Hets
supports Common Logic
cltools
is a PROLOG library with partial support for Common Logic
See also
* Conceptual graph
A conceptual graph (CG) is a formalism for knowledge representation. In the first published paper on CGs, John F. Sowa used them to represent the conceptual schemas used in database systems. The first book on CGs applied them to a wide range o ...
* Knowledge Interchange Format (KIF)
* Knowledge representation languages
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Common Logic
Knowledge representation languages
ISO standards