A Semiotic Approach to Conceptual Modelling

The work on Conceptual Modelling performed by our group at PUC-Rio is surveyed, covering four mutually dependent research topics. Regarding databases as a component of information systems, we extended the scope of the Entity-Relationship model, so as to encompass facts, events and agents in a three-schemata specification method employing a logic programming formalism. Next we proceeded to render the specifications executable, by utilizing backward-chaining planners to satisfy the agents' goals through sequences of fact-modification events. Thanks to the adoption of this plan-recognition / plan-generation paradigm, it became possible to treat both business-oriented and fictional narrative genres. To guide our conceptual modelling approach, we identified four semiotic relations, associated with the four master tropes that have been claimed to provide a system to fully grasp the world conceptually.