Description Logic Rules

We introduce description logic (DL) rules as a new rule-based formalism for knowledge representation in DLs. As a fragment of the Semantic Web Rule Language SWRL, DL rules allow for a tight integration with DL knowledge bases. In contrast to SWRL, however, the combination of DL rules with expressive description logics remains decidable, and we show that the DL 𝒮 ℛ 𝒪 ℐ 𝒬 - the basis for the ongoing standardisation of OWL 2 - can completely internalise DL rules. On the other hand, DL rules capture many expressive features of 𝒮 ℛ 𝒪 ℐ 𝒬 that are not available in simpler DLs yet. While reasoning in 𝒮 ℛ 𝒪 ℐ 𝒬 is highly intractable, it turns out that DL rules can be introduced to various lightweight DLs without increasing their worst-case complexity. In particular, DL rules enable us to significantly extend the tractable DLs ℰ ℒ ++and DLP.

Authors

• Markus Krötzsch
• Sebastian Rudolph
• Pascal Hitzler

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