Contextual terminologies

Abstract. The paper addresses the issue of contextual representations of ontologies, as it arises in the area of normative system specifications for modeling multi-agent systems. To this aim, the paper proposes a formalization of a notion of contextual terminology, that is to say, a terminology holding only with respect to a specific context. The formalization is obtained by means of a formal semantics framework which enables the expressivity of common description logics to reason within contexts (intra-contextual reasoning), allowing at the same time the possibility to reason also about contexts and their interplay (inter-contextual reasoning). Using this framework, two complex scenarios are discussed in detail and formalized.