An Ontological Analysis Framework for Domain-Specific Modeling Languages

This article describes how domain-specific modeling languages (DSML) are developed to specifically model certain domains and their phenomena. Over the last 15 years, different kinds of DSMLs have been ontologically analyzed to improve their ontological expressiveness. However, the term ‘ontological analyses' encompasses a great variety of different purposes, techniques or methods, and can thus be performed in many different ways without maintaining clear differentiation. Therefore, in this article, the authors aim to structure the process of conducting an ontological analysis, and offers guidelines in the form of descriptive patterns for analyzing a DSML. With the help of this framework, a researcher with a specific purpose can recognize the required patterns and types of methods that can be followed in order to successfully conduct an ontological analysis and achieve the intended purpose.