On Inheritance in Knowledge Representation

Abstract

This paper examines the problem of inheritance in Knowledge representation. Research in the formellteton of Knowledge has resulted in a small number of Knowledge classes and associated inheritance relations, e.g., INSTANCE IS-A, DEROTHERC, PERSPECTIVE, Virtual-Copy, etc. (Brachman, 1977; Fahlman, 1977; Hayes, 1977; Levesque & Mylopoloue, 1978). The process of inheritance is defined by the procedures that access these inheritance relationa. This paper proposes that: 1) in some cases inheritance between concepts is idiosyncratic and does not fit predefined inheritance relations, 2) learning and discovery systems require information on how and why one concept wes derived from another, which again Is not represented in standard inheritance relations, and 3) current methods of specifying inheritance modification and similarity mappings are complex to specify and understand. Consequently, e declarative approach to inheritance and similarity specification is presented as a solution to the above problems.