Exploiting fact verbalisation in conceptual information modelling

摘要

An increasing number of approaches to conceptual information modelling use verbalisation techniques as an aid to derive a model for a given universe of discourse (the problem domain). The underlying assumption is that by elaborate verbalisation of samples of facts, taken from the universe of discourse, one can elicit a complete overview of the relevant concepts and their inter-relationships. These verbalisations also provide a means to validate the resulting model in terms of expressions familiar to users. This approach can be found in modern ER variations, Object-Role Modelling variations, as well as different Object-Oriented Modelling techniques. After the modelling process has ended, the fact verbalisations are hardly put to any further use. As we belief this to be unfortunate, this article is concerned with the exploitation of fact verbalisations after finishing the actual information system. The verbalisations are exploited in four directions. We consider their use for a conceptual query language, the verbalisation of instances, the description of the contents of a database, and for the verbalisation of queries in a computer supported query environment. To put everything in perspective, we also provide an example session with an envisioned tool for end-user query formulation that exploits the verbalisations.