Meronomy
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A meronomy is a type of hierarchy which deals with part-whole relationships, in contrast to a taxonomy which categorisation based on discrete sets. These conceptual structures are used in linguistics and computer science, with applications in biology. The part-whole relationship is sometimes referred to as 'HAS-A', and corresponds to object composition in Object-Oriented Programming.[1] The study of meronomy is known as mereology, and in linguistics a meronym is the name given to a constituent part of, the substance of, or a member of something. X is a meronym of Y if X is a part of Y.[2]
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[edit] Example
Cars have parts Engine, Headlight, Wheel Engines have parts Crankcase, Carburetor Headlights have parts headlight bulb, reflector
[edit] Meronomies in Knowledge Representation
Formally, in the context of knowledge representation and ontologies a meronomy is a partial ordering of concept types by the part-whole relation.[3]
The classic study of parts and wholes, mereology, has three axioms[4]: the part-of relation is
- Transitive - "parts of parts are parts of the whole" - If A is part of B and B is part of C, then A is part of C
- Reflexive - "Everything is part of itself" - A is part of A
- Antisymmetric - "Nothing is a part of its parts" - if A is part of B and A != B then B is not part of A.
Meronomies may be represented in Semantic Web languages such as OWL and SKOS.
