Ontological engineering for rhetorical figures and beyond
The LaRheto application takes text input and automatically generates a knowledge base of meaning representations that are augmented with world knowledge. Inference is undertaken on the knowledge base using a set of Descriptive Rules that, finally, outputs the original text tagged with rhetorical figures. LaRheto is described, with special emphasis on ontological engineering from the perspective of the design process, following through to application. The use of linked ontologies is highlighted and a description of these methods, used within the LaRheto application, is analysed in more detail, including multi-namespace RDF knowledge bases. Linked ontologies are considered further, both from a large-scale engineering perspective and also in relation to extending domains of reference. By example, more recent work on an alternate ontology – designed to cover, more generally, the domains of cognition and knowledge – is shown, both in relation to ontology design and also to links with ontologies of rhetorical figures.