A Note on Prototypes, Convexity and Fuzzy Sets

The work on prototypes in ontologies pioneered by Rosch [10] and elaborated by Lakoff [8] and Freund [3] is related to vagueness in the sense that the more remote an instance is from a prototype the fewer people agree that it is an example of that prototype. An intuitive example is the prototypical "mother", and it is observed that more specific instances like "single mother", "adoptive mother", "surrogate mother", etc., are less and less likely to be classified as "mothers" by experimental subjects. From a different direction G

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2008
• Where: SLOGICA
• Authors: Norman Foo, Boon Toh Low
• Keywords: Characteristic Function, Fewer People, Single Mother, SLOGICA 2008