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Description
Both thesauri and ontologies belong to Knowledge Organization Systems (KOSs) aiming to represent concept relations within a specific domain. Thesauri have emerged within the domain of lexicography, while ontologies originate from philosophy. Thesauri usually represent concepts of general language, while ontologies exist to represent the relations of terms within a specialized domain. Even though they have been extensively examined, separately or in combination, there is still some obscurity as far as their notions and their relationships are concerned. Depending on the purpose of the study and the different perspectives, thesauri and ontologies have been regarded as diverse, complementary, or even overlapping concepts. Based on their similarities they can be regarded as siblings, or even twins. Their differences however in origin, purpose and scope may lead to the conclusion that they may be just “step relatives”. In order to define their type and degree of relationship, this paper aims to clarify the concepts of thesaurus and ontology as well as their similarities and differences. In this respect, this paper examines a part of lexicography that almost overlaps with terminology and clarifies two concepts that are commonly studied and compared without always being quite clear, at least in theoretical terms.
