On Interpreting Semantic Network Formalisms

摘要

In a recent paper, Reiter and Criscuolo remark 'that (semantic) networks are notational variants of logical formulae is by now a truism in Artificial Intelligence circles'. Shamelessly exploiting the foregoing quote as a pretext, I attempt to sketch adequate semantic accounts for at least two (kinds of) semantic network formalisms: one, based on the notion of inheritance; one, not. A crucial condition of adequacy to be satisfied is fidelity to some of the intuitions of the creators of the formalisms. (Author)