Federico PianzolaMay 31, 2025

Introducing the article "Grounding the Development of an Ontology for Narrative and Fiction" by Luca Scotti et al.

🧵1/ Formal ontologies can deeply enrich how we model and analyze narratives and fiction. But before developing a model that can be applied for the creation of a database, a solid conceptual foundation is needed.

#DigitalHumanities #SemanticWeb

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2/ Literary analysis needs structured, interoperable data, just like science. Think FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) applied to novels, plays, myths, and more. 📚🔍

🧩 But wait, what’s an ontology? It’s a formal specification of the concepts and relationships in a domain. In narratives, this could mean characters, plots, events, etc. Ontologies help computers reason about stories.

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3/ We review existing narrative ontologies—like ProppOnto (based on folklore structure), Drammar (conflict-based drama modeling), and Transmedia Ontology (modeling characters across media universes like Star Wars & Marvel). 🎭
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4/ One major challenge? Fictional characters don’t exist in the same way humans do. Most ontologies assume real-world referents. The paper proposes two mapping strategies to bridge domain-specific models with foundational ontologies like DOLCE and BFO. 🤯

#PhilosophyOfFiction

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5/ For example, a “Character” might be modeled as a “Social Object” (DOLCE) or as a bundle of attributes without real-world existence (in a BFO-compliant model). It all depends on your philosophical stance: realism? creationism? trope theory? 🏛️
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6/ đź”— CIDOC-CRM is used as a middle layer to connect specific narrative models to foundational ontologies. It provides a standard way to describe cultural artifacts and supports semantic interoperability between different systems. #CulturalHeritage #LinkedData
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7/ The takeaway: building ontologies for fiction forces us to make our assumptions explicit—about identity, meaning, even what counts as “existence.” This isn’t just data modeling—it’s literary theory and philosophy made computational. 💡💻📖
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8/ Final thought: Ontologies aren’t about replacing literary interpretation. They're about enabling new forms of shared, structured, and computationally rich storytelling research. A foundation for future collaborative digital humanities. 📚⚙️ #OpenScience
May 31, 2025 at 8:10amWeb
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9/ If you’re into narrative theory and linked data, check it out: “Grounding the Development of an Ontology for Narrative and Fiction” by Scotti, Pianzola & Pannach.

Open peer review: https://www.semantic-web-journal.net/content/grounding-development-ontology-narrative-and-fiction

#SemanticWeb #OntologyEngineering
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Grounding the development of an ontology for narrative and fiction | www.semantic-web-journal.net