A Deductive Pattern Matcher

Abstract

This paper describes the design of a pattern matcher for a knowledge representation system called LOOM. The pattern matcher has a very rich pattern-forming language, and is logic-based, with a deductive mechanism which includes a truth-maintenance component as an integral part of the pattern-matching logic. The technology behind the LOOM matcher uses an inference engine called a classifier to perform the matches. The LOOM matcher is more expressive and more complete than previous classificationbased pattern-matchers, and is expected to be significantly more efficient. 1 Introduction This paper describes the pattern-matching facility that has been designed for a knowledge representation system called LOOM [MacGregor and Bates, 1987]. LOOM belongs to the KL-ONE [Brachman and Schmolze, 1985] family of knowledge representation systems. A distinctive patternmatching architecture has been developed for some of these systems---they use an analytic inference engine called a classifier to pe...