Information Sciences 181 (2011) 4394–4408

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Information Sciences
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ins

A hierarchical model of a linguistic variable

Adolfo R. de Soto 1
School of Industrial Engineering and Computer Science, University of León, 24071 LEON, Spain

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this work a theoretical hierarchical model of dichotomous linguistic variables is pre-
Available online 12 April 2011 sented. The model incorporates certain features of the approximate reasoning approach
and others of the Fuzzy Control approach to Fuzzy Linguistic Variables. It allows sharing
Keywords: of the same hierarchical structure between the syntactic definition of a linguistic variable
Interpretable fuzzy systems and its semantic definition given by fuzzy sets. This fact makes it easier to build symbolic
Computing with words operations between linguistic terms with a better grounded semantic interpretation. More-
Linguistic variables
over, the family of fuzzy sets which gives the semantics of each linguistic term constitutes
Multiresolution analysis
Hierarchical models
a multiresolution system, and thanks to that any fuzzy set can be represented in terms of
Fuzzy sets the set of linguistic terms. The model can also be considered a general framework for build-
ing more interpretable fuzzy linguistic variables with a high capacity of accuracy, which
could be used to build more interpretable Fuzzy Rule Based Systems (FRBS).
Ó 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The concept of Fuzzy Linguistic Variable is a staple of the Fuzzy Set Theory [41,48]. It has the remarkable property of
putting together symbols and the meaning of those symbols as proper elements of a computational system [47]. However,
calculating with both levels simultaneously is not a trivial problem. Many symbolic operations have a very large set of
possible interpretations as fuzzy operations. Besides that, many fuzzy operations on fuzzy sets do not have a clear correspon-
dence with symbolic operations or do not correspond to inner operations in the set of symbolic terms. For these reasons,
both aspects, the symbolic and the aspect relative to the meaning, have been developed differently in Fuzzy Set Theory
and its applications. Calculus with fuzzy sets has had a higher prominence than calculus with symbols or words. The main
hypothesis of this work is that a stronger structure within the set of linguistic terms of a linguistic variable is needed, but
with the condition of a semantic model being associated with the same structure. In this way, inner symbolic operations
would also have as a result a fuzzy set which gives their meaning.
Essentially, the linguistic variable concept introduces two levels for manipulating ‘‘words’’, the syntactic or symbolic
level, where the names of the words are given and certain operations can be defined working on those symbols to generate
new symbols, and the semantic or meaning level, where Fuzzy Sets are introduced to give the meaning of each symbolic
word. Both levels are expressed explicitly in the initial definition of a Linguistic Variable given by Zadeh [43–45]. In the
original definition, no structure is considered for the set of linguistic terms, in spite of the fact that both linguistic connec-
tives such as and, or, not and linguistic modifiers such as very, little, at most, were considered from the beginning for building
derived terms from the basic terms. Zadeh’s definition does not fix either the semantic mapping which gives the semantic
value of each linguistic term. Traditionally two different ways have been considered. The first consists of defining a different
fuzzy set for each linguistic term, regardless of whether the term is simple or includes various operators or modifiers. This
approach has usually been used in Fuzzy Rule Based Systems. In contrast, the second approach gives a meaning to the basic

1
This work has been partially funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through Project TIN2008-06890-C02-01 and the Human Resources
National Mobility Program through grant PR2008-0143.
E-mail address: adolfo.rdesoto@unileon.es

0020-0255/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ins.2011.04.006
 A.R. de Soto / Information Sciences 181 (2011) 4394–4408 4395

terms by means of fuzzy sets directly but calculates the meaning of the derived linguistic terms. Using operations on the
class of fuzzy sets, a meaning for the connectives and for the linguistic modifiers is set by means of certain fuzzy operations
and then those operations are used to carry out the calculation. As is well known, t-norms, t-conorms [4] and negation func-
tions [36] are used to represent connectives, while several types of fuzzy operators are employed to represent linguistic
modifiers [6,31,32].
In this work the first approach described above is considered and a hierarchical interpretation of a dichotomous Fuzzy
Linguistic Variable is given. This kind of variable is characterized by the use of two antonymous linguistic terms as basic
terms. The use of this type of linguistic variable is very common in natural language and human beings process a great
amount of information using linguistic terms derived from these basic antonymous linguistic terms. The use of this kind
of variable is perhaps an embodied property of the human mind [26], and its representation as a hierarchical classification
system is able to show the two basic properties of hierarchical classifications [34]: cognitive economy and correspondence
with the structure of the world, this latter being understood as the pairing of world and observer. Furthermore, in this type of
linguistic variable the middle term is very important. In the model presented here, the middle term comes from one assump-
tion in the model.
The linguistic variables used in Fuzzy Rules Based Systems customarily have a finite and totally ordered number of lin-
guistic terms. It is evident that with a finite number of linguistic terms the capacity for accuracy is restricted. In fact, when
more accuracy is needed in a fuzzy rule based system the usual procedure is to increase the number of fuzzy labels. Working
with a finite number of labels is easier than using an infinite number. For that reason, many expert systems use a finite num-
ber of symbolic linguistic terms, without a fuzzy interpretation, to carry out reasoning, following the model of finite multi-
valued logics. The problem with this approach is that a serious restriction is imposed on the accuracy.
On the contrary, if a natural language is considered, an infinite number of linguistic terms seems more plausible. At least
potentially, natural languages have the possibility to produce a non-bounded number of linguistic terms associated with a
linguistic variable through the use of connectives or linguistic modifiers. As far as approximate reasoning is concerned, this
would appear to be true. Nevertheless, it is also true that human beings make use of only a few linguistic terms, and employ
linguistic modifiers to build new linguistic expressions through the intensification or weakening of the meaning of a linguis-
tic term. In this way, it is possible to attain greater accuracy. However, the number of different linguistic expressions that
people use in their vocabulary is quite limited, in spite of their potential capacity to produce an infinite number of them.
The model in this work is also based on a multiresolution scheme which permits working simultaneously with several
levels of resolution, and in this way tries to solve the problem of finite resolution versus potentially infinite resolution. In
many problems that human beings solve easily, resolution is set at the level which is sufficient to solve the problem in ques-
tion. For example, to find out if a piece of furniture will fit against a wall, people use an accuracy of centimetres, which is
good enough. On the contrary, for a carpenter to make that piece of furniture probably requires an accuracy of millimetres.
The objective is to be able to work in Fuzzy Rule Based Systems with an adequate resolution for the problem. Multiresolution
Analysis Theory, which was introduced by Mallat in [27], is usually used in Wavelet Theory [9] as the main method for build-
ing wavelet functions.
Another important issue in this work is the matter of interpretability of Fuzzy Rule Based Systems [7]. At the beginning of
their development, human interpretability of FRBS was perceived to be an essential aspect of them. However, in many works
on the topic of FRBS accuracy is the main concern. This work considers interpretability as a fundamental property of FRBS
and interpretability is reached through a simple structure in the linguistic label set and through having as few rules as pos-
sible. Nevertheless, the problem is how to achieve a high degree of accuracy with few rules and a simple linguistic term set. A
hierarchical model can help to solve this problem. Hierarchical Fuzzy Rule Based Systems have frequently been used for
modeling systems [35,39] but fewer examples exist that use Hierarchical Linguistic Variables [14,19].
The approach to interpretability of FRBS adopted here is mainly focused on getting a good structure in the set of linguistic
terms of a Linguistic Variable used in FRBS. Following the taxonomy given in [18], this paper is only concerned with the
semantic interpretability of a Linguistic Variable. But a relevant difference with usual approaches to FRBS interpretability
(see, for example, [2,3,7,22,23]) has to be remarked. The final goal here is not to obtain a high evaluation in the interpret-
ability of one FRBS in an isolated way, but to build interpretable Linguistic Variables to be used in several related FRBS which
incorporate a common variable with different levels of precision. For example, in the field of home automation, several FRBS
can use the temperature variable with different precision in different systems. Using the same set of linguistic terms for the
temperature, in spite of the different precision required in each FRBS, can improve the interpretability of the whole system.
Several other works have studied the problem of the interpretability in Fuzzy Rule Based Systems through defining an
adequate structure in the set of linguistic terms of a Linguistic Variable. In their works, Cat Ho and collaborators [8] built
an abstract algebraical structure to model linguistic modifiers as operations on the set of linguistic terms. This was solely
a symbolic approach and the meaning of the terms was not considered. Work reference [33] modeled linguistic expressions
of natural language which involved trichotomous linguistic variables, i.e. linguistic variables with three basic linguistic
terms, such as small–medium–large using a formal system of higher-order Fuzzy Logic. Again, being a symbolic approach, this
model was independent of the meaning given to the basic linguistic terms and to the linguistic modifiers. Finally, work ref-
erence [5] introduced a definition of interpretability in Linguistic Variables by means of defining certain relationships within
the set of linguistic terms which are preserved in the semantic interpretation counterpart (given by fuzzy sets). None of these
works considers the approach adopted here, where the meaning of every linguistic term is defined directly without using
operators to derive the meaning of a composite linguistic term. Similarly, a multiresolution perspective has not been
4396 A.R. de Soto / Information Sciences 181 (2011) 4394–4408

considered anywhere. Finally, some aspects of the approach adopted in this work have been partially outlined in previous
works by the author in conferences [14,15], but never in the complete form given here.
The rest of this paper is structured as follows. The first section introduces the model of a Hierarchical Linguistic Variable
in accordance with the Zadeh’s definition. Two main interpretations of the model can be considered, both of which are ex-
plained in the section. Special importance is given to the semantic aspects of the model through multiresolution systems of
functions. Various basic issues relating to ordering in the set of hierarchical linguistic terms are given with the aim of show-
ing the possibility of defining symbolic operations on the set of linguistic terms. Thereafter, a Hierarchical Linguistic Variable
allows the definition of a multiresolution descriptor for a fuzzy set and it is shown how in this model the basic linguistic
labels can be considered as a basis of the space of fuzzy sets. Finally, a basic learning method grounded in multiresolution
analysis is presented. With this method, it is possible to fix the meaning of the set of linguistic terms in a Hierarchical Lin-
guistic Variable, adapting the meaning to the context without losing the hierarchical structure of the Linguistic Variable.

2. Hierarchical Linguistic Variables

Following Zadeh’s definition, a linguistic variable is given by a quintuplet LV ¼ hV; T ; U; G; Mi where V is the name of the
variable, T is the set of linguistic terms, U is the universe of discourse, G is a set of syntactic rules which generate the set of
linguistic terms, and M is a set of semantic rules which assign a meaning, given by a fuzzy set, to each linguistic term in T.
In the hierarchical model which is proposed here the main elements of a linguistic variable are given as follows:

 T: only a unique basic term is considered: e0, and the rest is generated by the grammar G,
 U: the unit interval [0, 1] will be the basic universe but any real closed interval can be considered,
 G: there is only one rule in the set of syntactic rules which generate the linguistic terms:

S ) e0 jlðSÞjrðSÞ;
where l, r are two operators named left and right operators respectively.
 M: The semantic rule can be given by means of a biparametric family of fuzzy sets which are shifting and scaling versions
of a mother fuzzy set in a similar way to the definition of a family of scaling functions in a multiresolution system for
building a Wavelet System [9,27]. In fact that case is a particular case of using basis B-spline to set the semantics of a
Hierarchical Linguistic Variable. As is shown below, it is possible to assign different semantics to these labels, depending
on the basic properties of the linguistic term set.

The hierarchical model tries to cope with the very frequent linguistic variables which have a pair of basic linguistic terms
with a relationship of antinomy between them such as short–tall, small–large, etc. These terms are l(e0) and r(e0). In the
model, each linguistic term e belongs to a hierarchical level given by the number n of times that the operators l, r are applied
to generate e. So e0 has level 0, l(e), r(e) have level 1, ll(e), lr(e), rl(e), rr(e) have level 2 and so forth. Let Tn denote the set of
linguistic terms of level n and T ¼ [n2N T n the set of all linguistic terms. In Fig. 1 a graphic representation of T is shown.
The operators l, r can have different interpretations. For example, it is possible to consider that these operators allow the
building of new linguistic terms as linguistic modifiers do. So, on each level there are different linguistic terms achieving a
greater capacity for accuracy. The basic terms maintain their meaning and when new levels are considered, new linguistic
terms are introduced. This interpretation will be named the approximate reasoning interpretation.
On the other hand, it is possible to adopt a Fuzzy Control point of view of a Hierarchical Linguistic Variable and to consider
that each level gives a whole set of linguistic labels. Then, when a change of level occurs, a new set of linguistic labels is
obtained with a higher capacity for accuracy. In this interpretation, the meaning of a linguistic label changes in a way depen-
dent upon the level under consideration. It would be as if the presence of new labels restrict the meaning of the old ones. For
example, the concept of young can change if only two concepts, young and old, are considered when classifying all people, in
contrast with the situation when further concepts, such as child, young, middle-aged and old, are considered. This interpre-
tation is here designed the Fuzzy Control interpretation. Under this interpretation, the operators l, r can be viewed as map-
pings from a coarser level of resolution to a finer one.
Lastly, the operators l, r can be interpreted as the linguistic expressions less than and more than, respectively, similarly to
what was done in Ref. [5]. They can be used to build a partition at a given interval. With this interpretation, each label e will
be partitioned into two parts given by l(e) and r(e). This interpretation is here termed the partition interpretation.

Fig. 1. A hierarchical linguistic variable.

 A.R. de Soto / Information Sciences 181 (2011) 4394–4408 4397

2.1. Two hierarchical models

Hierarchies consist of different levels which may or may not be nested. In terms of the theory of categorization, a hier-
archical structure where the categories of one level are always included in the level above it is called a taxonomy. In the
model of a Hierarchical Linguistic Variable it is possible to assign different semantics to the linguistic terms depending on
whether a taxonomy between the linguistic labels is assumed or not.
To discuss different ways to define the semantic rule M for a Hierarchical Linguistic Variable, account is taken of the fam-
ily of triangular fuzzy sets given by
  m

/mn ðxÞ ¼ max 0; 1  nx   m; n 2 N; n P m;
n
where /00(x) = 1. Other parametric families can be considered using higher-order basis B-spline functions [11], as is shown in
the next section. They are introduced in the setting of multiresolution analysis. Triangular fuzzy sets are basis B-splines of
degree 1 according the notation used later in this paper.
Basically, two possible models can be posited; they depend on whether or not the operators l and r commute. Under the
Approximate Reasoning interpretation, it is possible to interpret the different levels as new levels of precision in the set of
linguistic terms in the same way as linguistic modifiers do. The use of a linguistic modifier would in that case involve the step
of going from a lower level to a higher level of precision. For example, taking the linguistic modifier very and the linguistic
modifier slightly, it is possible to question whether very slightly old is equivalent to slightly very old. If these are seen as equiv-
alent terms, it is being assumed that the operators l and r commute and lr(S) = rl(S).
If this is the case, the set of linguistic terms Tn of the same level can be written as
T n ¼ femn : n 2 N; m 2 f0; . . . ; ngg
and it is possible then to use the following notation:
e00 ¼ e0
e01 ¼ lðe00 Þ
e11 ¼ rðe00 Þ

emnþ1 ¼ lðemn Þ
emþ1nþ1 ¼ rðemn Þ


Fig. 2. The model when l, r commute.

Fig. 3. A semantic interpretation when l, r commute.

4398 A.R. de Soto / Information Sciences 181 (2011) 4394–4408

The equality emn = lnmrm(e00) gives the syntactic production used to generate the label emn. Fig. 2 gives a graphical represen-
tation of this model.
With fuzzy triangular numbers, the semantic rule M would be direct (see Fig. 3)
  m

Mðemn Þ ¼ /mn ðxÞ ¼ max 0; 1  nx   m; n 2 N; n P m:
n
If, on the contrary, it is assumed that l and r are interpreted under the partition interpretation, the Hierarchical Linguistic
Variable defines a taxonomy and each label contains two labels of a finer level. This model can be obtained merely just pos-
iting a non-commutative interaction between the operators l, r. In this case the linguistic term set can be defined as

T n ¼ femn : m; n 2 N; 1 6 m 6 2n g

and the different levels are written as

e10 ¼ e0
e11 ¼ lðe00 Þ
e21 ¼ rðe00 Þ

e2m1nþ1 ¼ lðemn Þ
e2mnþ1 ¼ rðemn Þ

So on each level n there are 2n linguistic terms and the subindex n gives the level, while the subindex m gives the position
of the label within the level n (see Fig. 4). This model was used in [2] to define a method to learn a FRBS using different levels
of resolution in the set of linguistic terms.
In this case, recovering the syntactic expression of a linguistic term emn from its position within the level is a little more
complicated. Given a linguistic term e, let es1 ;...;sn be its expression in terms of the operators l, r, where si 2 {l, r}. The expression
es1 ;...;sn is interpreted as es1 ;...;sn ¼ s1 . . . sn ðe0 Þ.
Then, for each emn it will be the case that emn ¼ es1 ;...;sn when the indexes si are obtained as
8
> nP
1
<r if m > 2n1 þ ð1Þsjþ1 2j1 ;
si ¼ j¼i
>
:
l otherwise;

Fig. 4. A non-commutative model.

Fig. 5. A semantic interpretation when l, r do not commute.

 A.R. de Soto / Information Sciences 181 (2011) 4394–4408 4399

where

1 if si ¼ r;
ð1Þsi ¼
1 if si ¼ l:
The semantic rule in this case will be (see Fig. 5)
  
 m  1 
Mðemn Þ ¼ /m12n 1 ðxÞ ¼ max 0; 1  ð2n  1Þx  n
2  1
taking into account that the particular case of M(e10) = 1.

2.2. The semantic mapping of a Hierarchical Linguistic Variable

To establish the meaning of a linguistic term in a linguistic variable, two approaches are possible. One of them involves
fixing the meaning of the basic linguistic terms and calculating the meaning of the composite linguistic terms through the
fuzzy interpretation of the connectives and linguistic modifiers. The other consists of direct assignment of a fuzzy set to each
linguistic term independently of whether it is considered a basic term or a composite term. This is the approach adopted
here. The whole set of linguistic terms is seen as a multiresolution system with the capacity to represent information with
different levels of resolution.
Multiresolution analysis is based on a nested sequence of successive approximation functional spaces
    V 2  V 1  V 0  V 1  V 2     ð1Þ
with
[
V j ¼ L2 ðRÞ ð2Þ
j2Z

and
\
V j ¼ f0g; ð3Þ
j2Z

where L2 ðRÞ is the space of all square Lebesgue integrable functions in the real space R.
The spaces Vi are used to approximate general functions and since the union of all of them is dense in L2 ðRÞ, any given
function can be approximated arbitrarily closely by means of its projections Pjf on Vj.
Multiresolution analysis is mainly used in Wavelet Theory [9] to build wavelet families.
In the previous section, the semantics of the linguistic terms was expressed by a family of triangular fuzzy sets. That
example is simply a particular case of using basis B-splines functions to model fuzzy sets. In fact, B-splines can be used
to build multiresolution analysis and so the set of linguistic terms of a Hierarchical Linguistic Variable can be represented
as a multiresolution system.

2.2.1. B-splines
B-spline functions, of degree k, are piecewise polynomial functions which can be generated as a linear combination of
particular B-splines named basis B-splines.
The i-th basis B-spline Bi,k(jt) of degree2 k for the non-decreasing real sequence t = (ti)i=1,. . .,m of knots can be defined by the
Cox–de Boor recursive formula:

1 if t i 6 x < t iþ1 ;
Bi;0 ðxjtÞ ¼ i ¼ 1; . . . ; m  k  1;
0 otherwise;

x  ti t iþkþ1  x
Bi;k ðxjtÞ ¼ Bi;k1 ðxjtÞ þ Biþ1;k1 ðxjtÞ i ¼ 1; . . . ; m  k  1:
t iþk  t i t iþkþ1  t iþ1
Hence, there are m  k  1 basis B-splines of degree k from a sequence of m knots.
As example, basis B-splines of degree 0 are indicator functions:

1 if t i 6 x < tiþ1 ;
Bi;0 ðxÞ ¼ 1½ti ;tiþ1  ¼
0 otherwise;
while basis B-splines of degree 1 are linear functions and they are triangular fuzzy sets:
8 xt
>
>
i
if t i 6 x < t iþ1 ;
< tiþ1 ti
t iþ2 x
Bi;1 ðxÞ ¼ if t iþ1 6 x < t iþ2 ;
> tiþ2 tiþ1
>
:
0 otherwise:

2
k is the degree of the polynomial constituents of Bi,k,t.
4400 A.R. de Soto / Information Sciences 181 (2011) 4394–4408

Basis B-splines of degree 2 are quadratic functions, basis B-splines of degree 3 are cubic functions and so on.
All these functions can be used to represent fuzzy sets. In fact several properties of basis B-splines are important when
they are used as membership functions:

1. They are positive: Bi,k(xjt) P 0 for all x,

2. They have local support: Bi,k(xjt) = 0 for all x R [ti, ti+1]
3. The basis B-splines of degree k are a partition of the unity:
X
mk1
Bi;k ðxjtÞ ¼ 1:
i¼0

Hence they have the usual basic properties needed to have a good interpretability as membership functions used to rep-
resent linguistic terms of a linguistic variable. In [28], a set of basic properties of an interpretable fuzzy set and an interpret-
able set of linguistic terms of a linguistic variable was given. The properties were formulated as a set of constraints for any
automatic method to obtain information granules from data. In the case of the model given here, any basis B-spline is always
a strictly convex, unimodal, continuous fuzzy set and it is normalize in the case of degree 1. Moreover, each level i is a set of
fuzzy sets which are properly ordered, distinguishable, complete and constitute a complementary uniform granulation.
Another important case is obtained when B0 is taken as the characteristic function of the interval ½ 12 ; 12 and Bk is calcu-
lated as the convolution product
b0 ¼ X ½0;1Þ ; the constant Haar function equal to 1;
br ¼ br1  b0 ;
where ⁄ is the convolution operator
Z
ðf  gÞðxÞ ¼ f ðx  tÞgðtÞdt:
R

These functions are named centred or cardinal B-splines.

A B-spline S of degree k is given by a linear combination of basis B-splines Bi,k of degree k
X
mk1
SðxjtÞ ¼ pi Bi;k ðxjtÞ; x 2 ½tkþ1 ; t mk1 ; pi 2 R:
i¼1

When the knot vector is uniformly spaced, the B-splines are named uniform B-splines. In this case, the basis B-splines are
just shifted copies of each other, i.e. Bi,k = Bk(x  ti) and the space of B-splines forms a multiresolution system and it is pos-
sible to obtain a Wavelet System from the family of basis B-splines [30].
When non-uniform knot sequences are considered, it is also possible to obtain a multiresolution system if the set of knot
vectors form a nested family of vectors. A family L of non-decreasing sequences {tl}l2L is a nested family of sequences if
tl  tl+1, taking the vectors as sets of points.
A level of linguistic terms Tn (under the approximate reasoning interpolation described in the previous section) has n + 1
labels. It is possible to map those labels to the set of n + 1 basis B-splines of degree k. It must be taken into account that to
obtain n + 1 basis B-splines functions it is necessary to define a sequence of knots of at least m = n + k + 2 points. Hence if a set
of nested sequences {tl}l=1,. . .,1 is defined with length(tl) = n + k + 2 a meaning to T ¼ [n2N T n is obtained. That system consti-
tutes a multiresolution system and thanks to the properties of the basis B-splines of degree k it is possible to choose the
smoothness of the functions.

3. Symbolic aspects of a Hierarchical Linguistic Variable

Having a fixed structure on the linguistic term set allows the definition of certain symbolic operations on the linguistic
terms, from which the meaning of the result can be obtained, thanks to the mapping between the set of linguistic terms
and the set of fuzzy sets which give their meaning. In fact, as will be shown in a later section, it is possible to obtain the mean-
ing of each linguistic term of a Hierarchical Linguistic Variable with automatic procedures, so the meaning of each linguistic
term can be different but the structural relationship between linguistic terms will be the same. In fact, it may be possible to
define various common-sense relationships for this kind of linguistic variable, valid for any Hierarchical Linguistic Variable.

3.1. Orderings on the set of hierarchical linguistic terms

Hierarchical Systems are characterized by a partial ordering between their elements [1]. In the model presented here, sev-
eral orderings can be defined for the set of linguistic terms. At this point, only the case where the operators l, r commute is
taken into account, so the set of linguistic terms to consider is T ¼ [n2N T n where
T n ¼ femn : n 2 N; m 2 f0; . . . ; ngg:
 A.R. de Soto / Information Sciences 181 (2011) 4394–4408 4401

Fig. 6. The basic ordering relations for any admissible ordering.

Fig. 7. The lexicographic ordering.

Of particular interest are orderings which maintain the usual ordering within a level, and which also take into account the
hierarchical structure between levels in such a way that labels at lower levels are smaller than labels at higher levels.

Definition 3.1. An ordering relation 6s is said to be admissible for T if the next two conditions are satisfied:

1. 8n 2 N emn 6s em0 n when m 6 m0

2. 8n 2 N e0n 6s e0nþ1 and enn 6s enþ1nþ1

This definition imposes a minimal set of ordering relations between the elements of Tn, as can be seen in Fig. 6.
Definition 3.1 can be satisfied with total ordering and partial orderings.

Proposition 3.2. The ordering relation 62 defined as:

emn 62 em0 n0 () ðn < n0 Þ _ ðn ¼ n0 ^ m 6 m0 Þ

is a total admissible ordering named lexicographic order. Fig. 7 illustrates this ordering.
Consideration will now be given to the relationship defined by

n 6 n0 and mn0 6 m0 n; or
emn ~2 em0 n0 if
n > n0 and 0 – m 6 m0 :
This relation is reflexive and anti-symmetrical, but it is a non-transitive relationship because with n0 > n > m > 0 it is the
case that e0n0 ~2 e1n0 ; e1n0 ~2 e1n ; e1n ~2 emn but e0n0 
~ 2 emn . Taking 2 (see Fig. 8) as the transitive closure of ~2 the following re-
sult ensues.

Proposition 3.3. The relation 2 is an admissible partial ordering relation for T.

The following result shows an interesting property of the ordering given above.

Theorem 3.4. Under the ordering 2, two labels on the same level always have an intermediate label.3

This theorem is not necessarily valid for any given pair of labels, but in a certain sense it states that it is possible to refine
any information given by two labels in a Hierarchical Linguistic Variable.

3
The proof of this theorem is simply a proof by cases and because of his length it is omitted.
4402 A.R. de Soto / Information Sciences 181 (2011) 4394–4408

Fig. 8. The ordering relation 2 (some relationships are not shown).

Another method to define an admissible ordering on T is by the extension principle. The operations:
MINðl1 ; l2 ÞðzÞ ¼ sup minðl1 ðxÞ; l2 ðyÞÞ;
z¼minðx;yÞ

MAXðl1 ; l2 ÞðzÞ ¼ sup minðl1 ðxÞ; l2 ðyÞÞ

z¼maxðx;yÞ

define a distribution lattice for the class of fuzzy sets with the order given by

l1 6 l2 () MINðl1 ; l2 Þ ¼ l1 :
If the meaning of the labels emn is given by the fuzzy sets defined in the universe [0, 1] by triangular membership
  m o

emn ðxÞ ¼ max 0; 1  nx  ; m; n 2 N; n P m
n
the order defined from the extension principle for the set T is an admissible ordering, provided that the label e00 is not con-
sidered. As a symbolic ordering it can be defined by the expression
8
< m ¼ n ¼ 0 or
>
emn 3 em0 n0 () m ¼ n; m0 ¼ n0 ; n 6 n0 or
>
:
jn  n0 j 6 m0 n  mn0 :

4. A multiresolution descriptor of a fuzzy set

Zadeh introduced in his paper [46] the concept of a descriptor for the elements of a universe of discourse U given by a set
of linguistic terms T = {t1, . . . , tn}. For each element u 2 U a fuzzy set D(u) in the set F ðTÞ of fuzzy sets over T is defined. The
value D(u)(ti) = ti(u) 2 [0, 1] expresses the compatibility level between the element u and the linguistic term ti. Following
these ideas, Willaeys and Malvache [40] defined an approximate descriptor for any fuzzy set in a universe U by a weighted
set of labels belonging to a basic vocabulary covering the universe of discourse. At a later point, Dubois et al. [16] defined
several other approximate descriptors of a fuzzy set. That definition is followed here.
Let l 2 F ðUÞ be a fuzzy set over the universe U and T ¼ ft 1 ; . . . ; t n g a set of linguistic labels. An approximate descriptor D
is a mapping from F ðUÞ to the class of fuzzy sets F ðT Þ over T . D expresses the fuzzy set l in terms of the linguistic labels of
T . Some examples of approximate descriptors are:

1. Dþ ðlÞðti Þ ¼ supu2U minðlðuÞ; ti ðuÞÞ. This descriptor can be interpreted as the degree of possibility that an element u of U
compatible with l is among the elements of U covered by the term ti.
2. D ðlÞðti Þ ¼ inf u2U maxð1  lðuÞ; t i ðuÞÞ; which can be interpreted as the degree of inclusion of l into ti.
3. D ðlÞðt i Þ ¼ inf u2U maxð1  ti ðuÞ; lðuÞÞ; which corresponds to the fuzzy set of terms which certainly entail l.

In the reference mentioned above, several properties of these descriptors were shown. In particular, the pair (D⁄(l), D+(l))
can be viewed as the fuzzy extension of a rough set where D⁄(l) is a lower approximation and D+(l) is an upper approxi-
mation. Several other definitions are possible. For example, if the linguistic labels are normalized, one can have
Dc ðlÞðt i Þ ¼ lðcti Þ;
where cti is a point such that ti ðcti Þ ¼ 1. Then, it is proved that

D ðlÞðt i Þ 6 Dc ðlÞðt i Þ 6 Dþ ðlÞðt i Þ

for all t i 2 T .
 A.R. de Soto / Information Sciences 181 (2011) 4394–4408 4403

Fig. 9. Hierarchical linguistic terms as vectors.

In [15] a multiresolution descriptor of a fuzzy set was introduced. That descriptor is based on multiresolution schemata
and can be defined from a Hierarchical Linguistic Variable under the taxonomic or non-commutative interpretation of the
operators l, r.

4.1. The multiresolution descriptor

A multiresolution analysis can be built by fixing conditions (see [9]) with regard to a scaling function /. From here on-
wards, the function /(x) = max(0, 1  jxj), which is a fuzzy triangular number centred at 0 and a second-order B-spline, will
be considered. However, other scaling functions can be taken into consideration, in particular other B-spline functions [11] of
higher order which are also accepted as fuzzy sets.
From the scaling function / a multiresolution analysis M/ is generated by defining functions4 /ij(x) = /(2ix  j) =
max(0, 1  j2ix  jj) and considering the linear span functional vector spaces V i ¼ spanf/ij : j 2 Zg. The functions /ij are trian-
gular fuzzy sets constructed with integer shifts and dilations by powers of 2, with support 2i[j  1, j + 1] and symmetric with
respect to 21j.
R
Let the space of all measurable and square integrable fuzzy sets, that is, those l such that R ðlðxÞÞ2 dx < 1 over a compact
5
universe U now be considered. Given l 2 F ðUÞ and the multiresolution system M/, the projection of l in Vi can be calculated
as:
Z
lij ¼ lðxÞ/ij ðxÞdx
U

and by defining
X
li ðxÞ ¼ lij /ij ðxÞ
j2Z

an approximation is obtained for the fuzzy set l in Vi. The sequence lij is finite because U is a compact set, and it represents l
in Vi. Therefore, an approximate descriptor of l at resolution i can be defined as
Di ðlÞð/ij Þ ¼ lij : ð4Þ

By fixing the resolution i, it is possible to represent each fuzzy set l with the sequence u = (lij). Since every fuzzy set l
R R
satisfies l(x) 6 1, it holds that U /ij lðxÞ 6 U /ij . The last integral is equal to 1 for /0 and it is less than 1 for all /ij with i > 0.
Only resolutions with i P 0 are here taken into account, hence the sequence u belongs to the product space ½0; 1ni where the
number of factors ni depends on the chosen resolution i. When there is no ambiguity, the multiresolution factor may be de-
noted by n. The space [0, 1]n = {u = (u1, . . . , un)} may be taken to be the fuzzy sets space at a fixed resolution given by the mul-
tiresolution analysis M/. The fuzzy sets /ij will be the base term set of linguistic labels. Again, if no problems of ambiguity
arise, they will be denoted by /j, where the index j takes values between 1 and n.
It is of interest to note various points with regard to this representation:

1. Singletons ux0 all go to the sequence 0 because of the equation

Z
ux0 ðxÞ/ij ðxÞdx ¼ 0 8i; j 2 Z:
U

So, in this model, the calculus on fuzzy sets is not a generalization of classical set theory because the singletons are lost.
2. Constant fuzzy sets l(x) = k go to constants sequences because of the equation
Z Z
k/ij ðxÞdx ¼ k /ij ðxÞdx
U U

and for a fixed i, the integral of /ij is always constant.

4
Note that the interpretation of the indexes in this formula is different of the notation given in the Section 2.1.
5
The problems with the borders in the setting of Wavelet Theory are not taking in consideration here because it would does unnecessarily complicate the
exposition.
4404 A.R. de Soto / Information Sciences 181 (2011) 4394–4408

3. The basic linguistic labels are represented with unit vectors. That is, /j is associated with the vector (0, . . . , 1, . . . 0), with
the 1 in position j. Fig. 9 illustrates the idea of a set of linguistic terms in a Hierarchical Linguistic variable as a set of basis
vectors, where each basis vector is associated with a linguistic term.
P
4. Given a vector u = (u1, . . . , un), the approximate fuzzy set l ¼ uj /j can be calculated by linear interpolation of the values
u = (u1, . . . , un).

5. Basic Fuzzy Calculus in F i ðUÞ ¼ ½0; 1n

A vector u ¼ ðu1 ; . . . ; un Þ 2 F i ðUÞ ¼ ½0; 1n represents a fuzzy set at a fixed resolution i. The usual operations in Fuzzy Set
Theory can be extended in a natural way to the product space [0, 1]n.

5.1. t-Norms and t-Conorms

T-norms and t-conorms are habitually used as functions to model intersection and union in Fuzzy Set Theory [4]. A
t-norm T defines an operation T : F i ðUÞ F i ðUÞ ! F i ðUÞ in a pointwise way:
Tðu; v Þ ¼ ðTðu1 ; v 1 Þ; . . . ; Tðun ; v n ÞÞ:

A similar operation is defined pointwise for a t-conorm. These operations on F i ðUÞ inherit the usual properties of t-norms
and t-conorms, so the outcome is that t-norms and t-conorms for the product space [0, 1]n are obtained. The unit element
for t-norms is the unit vector 1 = (1, . . . , 1) and the absorbent element is the zero vector 0 = (0, . . . , 0). The order 6 defined
pointwise allows the proving of monotonic properties.
It would be of interest to find the difference between first projecting two fuzzy sets and then computing the pointwise
t-norm on the one hand, and first calculating the t-norm of both fuzzy sets and then obtaining their projection. Let li, gi be
two projections of two fuzzy sets at resolution i and let lij, gij be their components in that resolution. The following prop-
erties are satisfied:

1. T(l, g)ij 6 min(lij, gij),

2. S(l, g)ij P max(lij, gij).

These formulae state that the components of the projection of T(l, g) (S(l, g)) are always less than (more than) or equal to
the minimum (the maximum) of the projection components of each fuzzy set. The proof in the case of a t-norm, (it is anal-
ogous for a t-conorm), is evident. From T(l, g) 6 l, it is deduced that T(l, g)/ij 6 l/ij because /ij is always positive, and by
integrating both sides one has
Z Z
Tðl; gÞij ¼ Tðl; gÞðxÞ/ij ðxÞdx 6 lðxÞ/ij dx ¼ lij :
U U

The same can be done for gij, so the result follows.

On the other hand, it is satisfied that
X X  X
minðli ; gi Þ ¼ min lij ; gij P minðlij ; gij Þ
P P P
because of the truth of the relation minð ai bi ; ai ci Þ P ai minðbi ; ci Þ.
It is of interest to note that hF ðcalUÞ; min; max; 0; 1i is a distributed lattice and if the basic term set of linguistic labels is
considered, the outcome is a finite Boolean algebra. The lattice order is pointwise order and it may be noted that two pro-
jections li, gi verify li 6 gi if and only if each of their components satisfy (lij 6 gij).

5.2. Negation

Classical negation in Fuzzy Set Theory is defined by the involution 1  x [36]. A pointwise negation can be defined for
F i ðUÞ as
notðuÞ ¼ ð1  u1 ; . . . ; 1  un Þ

and it is easy to prove that this is an involutive negation. Moreover, it holds that:
Z Z Z
notðlÞij ¼ ð1  lðxÞÞ/ij ðxÞdx ¼ /ij ðxÞdx  lðxÞ/ij ðxÞdx ¼ ki  lij
U U U

and
X X X
ð1  lij Þ/ij ¼ /ij  lij /ij ¼ 1  li ;
P
whenever /ij ¼ 1, which is always the case in the multiresolution analysis M/ under consideration here.
 A.R. de Soto / Information Sciences 181 (2011) 4394–4408 4405

Note that although the negation (1, . . . , 1, 0, 1, . . . , 1) of a basic vector (0, . . . , 1, . . . , 0) is not itself a basic vector, it can still be
interpreted as the sum of the rest of the basic vectors. Usually, when a finite set of symbolic labels is considered, negation is
defined as the antonymous label, without the possibility of the simultaneous existence of both a real negation and the con-
cept of an antonymous label. In the model presented here, the antonym6 of a label can be defined as:
antðuÞ ¼ ðun ; un1 ; . . . ; u1 Þ:
With any admissible order
I, the basic linguistic labels are in increasing order:
/1
I /2
I   
I /n :
Taking the antonym of each label inverts this order, and so it holds that
antð/1 ÞI antð/2 ÞI    I antð/n Þ:
Pointwise negation inverts the usual pointwise order between fuzzy set projections and the lexicographic order between
basic linguistic labels:
notð/1 Þ  notð/2 Þ      notð/n Þ
A usual property of the antonymous label [12] is that ant (l)  not (l). If standard pointwise inclusion, that is,
l  g () l 6 g is considered, this property will be satisfied when
uniþ1 6 1  ui () uniþ1 þ ui 6 1
and that relation will be true for all basic linguistic labels except for the central one, which exists when n is an odd number
and it is its own antonym.

5.3. Linguistic modifiers

Zadeh proposed in his earlier work [42] a representation for several linguistic modifiers. This representation was based on
operations, such as square or square root, upon membership functions. For example, if ‘‘A’’ is a fuzzy set and its membership
function is lA, then the membership function of ‘‘very A’’ can be calculated as lv eryA ¼ l2A . This idea can be directly taken into

multiresolution descriptors using the same operator in a pointwise way such as u2 ¼ u2i and from a semantic point of view
its behaviour will be correct. However, a relationship cannot be assumed between the projections of l and the projections
of l2 because this depends on the chosen multiresolution system. It is possible to assert that
Z Z
ðl2 Þij ¼ l2 /ij 6 l/ij ¼ lij ;
R R

but in general it is not possible to compare l2 /ij directly with l/ij 2 .

Nevertheless, several works [20,25,38] have shown that the behaviour of hedges is not exactly given by Zadeh’s vision of
linguistic modifiers, so other models have been proposed in fuzzy theory [6,31,32]. The model based on translations within
the universe of discourse is especially interesting for the present model. In this case the membership function of ‘‘very A’’ is
calculated as lveryA(x) = lA(x  t). If the projections in the multiresolution system are calculated, the outcome is
Z Z Z Z
ðlv eryA Þij ¼ lv eryA ðxÞ/ij ðxÞdx ¼ lcA ðn  tÞ /cij ðnÞdn ¼ e2pitn l c ðnÞdn ¼
cA ðnÞ /ij lcA ðnÞ /cij ðn  tÞdn
Z
¼ lA ðxÞ/ij ðx  tÞdx;

where the Parseval Identity and Fourier Calculus have been used. This relation indicates that if the appropriate value is taken
for t, such as t = 2i in the case of a multiresolution system based on triangular fuzzy sets, it is possible to achieve the result
that (lvery A)ij = (lA)ij1 and therefore, a unitary left or right shift of the vector (uij) can be interpreted as a linguistic modifier
when this is modeled by an inner translation in the universe of discourse.
It is relevant to note that the operators r, l of a Hierarchical Linguistic Variable can be interpreted as linguistic modifiers.
When the operators l, r commute with each other, it holds that
lðemn Þ ¼ emnþ1 ;
rðemn Þ ¼ emþ1nþ1 ;

so they operate through increasing the level of resolution. In terms of the elements of the basis the result is that:

lðv Þ ¼ ðv ; 0Þ;
rðv Þ ¼ ð0; v Þ;

6
This is the classic definition of the antonym label in Fuzzy Set Theory, to see another definitions the reader is referred to Ref. [37].
4406 A.R. de Soto / Information Sciences 181 (2011) 4394–4408

where v represents any linguistic term. So these can be seen as linguistic modifiers which permit refinement of the meaning
of a fuzzy label.

6. Changing the resolution level

The multiresolution system M/ allows change of the resolution level with an efficient algorithm thanks to the fast wavelet
transform. Moreover, it is possible to analyze the errors introduced when a lower resolution level is chosen. In particular,
thanks to the multiresolution properties of the model, a FRBS which uses a Hierarchical Linguistic Variable can be changed
in a local way, introducing or deleting labels in a neighborhood where the resolution is not high or low enough. In [29] can be
seen an example of that with triangular fuzzy sets, which are splines of degree 1.
Briefly, since Vi  Vi+1, there exists a complementary space Wi of Vi in Vi+1 such that Vi+1 = Vi  Wi. In accordance with
wavelet theory, there is a functional base wij in Wi such that for all li+1 2 Vi+1
X X X
liþ1 ¼ muiþ1j /iþ1j ¼ lij /ij þ l~ ij wij ;
R
where l~ ij ¼ U lwij are the so called detail coefficients. The fast wavelet transform is an efficient method to compute the coef-
ficients ðlij ; l
~ ij Þ from li+1j and, reciprocally, these can be recovered from ðlij ; l
~ ij Þ. Consequently, from a given projection of a
fuzzy set l in Vi+1 it is possible easily to calculate its projection in Vi and to change the error level when a lower resolution is
used.
For example, consider the biorthogonal (2, 2) wavelet transform [9]. Biorthogonal wavelets are characterized by the exis-
tence of a dual scaling function / and a dual wavelet w  that generate a dual multiresolution analysis. The primal and dual
systems are used for analysis and synthesis respectively. The biorthogonal (2, 2) system uses as one of its scaling functions
the second-order B-spline /ðxÞ ¼ b2 ðxÞ ¼ maxð0; 1  jxjÞ.
Without giving details at this point, it is the case that a wavelet transform can be performed by means of the lifting
scheme [10]. This method allows a faster and more economical computation of the scaling and detail coefficients when a
resolution change is needed. Let l be a fuzzy set and let (li+1,j)j=1,. . .,n be the projections of l in the subspace Vi+1. The coef-
ficients li+1,j can be extended with zero values when j < 1 or j > n. Thanks to the lifting scheme it is possible to calculate the
biorthogonal (2, 2) wavelet transform easily. The detail and scaling coefficients in a lower resolution are calculated as:
1
l~ i;j ¼ liþ1;2jþ1  ðliþ1;2j þ liþ1;2jþ2 Þ;
2
1
li;j ¼ liþ1;2j þ ðl~ i;j1 þ l~ i;j Þ:
4
Again, the wavelet inverse transform is easily calculated from the detail and scaling coefficients of a lower resolution:
1
liþ1;2j ¼ li;j  ðl~ i;j1 þ l~ i;j Þ;
4
1
liþ1;2jþ1 ¼ l~ i;jþ1 þ ðliþ1;2j þ li;2jþ2 Þ:
2

7. Changing the semantics of a Hierarchical Linguistic Variable

A Hierarchical Linguistic Variable can be seen as a multiresolution system to approximate any square integrable function.
In fact, as was shown in [13,14] any function can be approximated to any degree of accuracy with a Takagi–Sugeno Fuzzy
Rule Based System based on a multiresolution system. That means it is possible to express any data to any degree of accuracy
in terms of the labels of a Hierarchical Linguistic Variable.
Two approaches are admissible to achieve this expressiveness. First, without changing the meaning of linguistic terms,
use can be made of the multiresolution analysis given above. This approach is based on fixing an admissible error or thresh-
old of approximation and using any linguistic terms of any level to obtain an error below that threshold. In this approach, the
meaning of the linguistic labels is fixed, and a high degree of approximation is obtained by using labels of a finer level where
they are necessary and labels of a coarser level where a rough approximation is enough. Another approach to obtain a high
accuracy without changing the meaning of the fuzzy sets is to use different weights for each rule in the set of rules of a FRBS
[22,23].
However, another approach is also possible. It consists of changing the meaning of the linguistic terms as a function of the
data. In fact, this is the approach taken in [13,14]. With this method, after fixing the greatest error level to be admitted, using
the Fast Wavelet Transform algorithm, it is possible to build a fuzzy partition of a certain number of linguistic labels which
can be considered the semantic definition of the linguistic terms of the appropriate level in a Hierarchical Linguistic Variable.
The remaining levels can be built by adding details to obtain more linguistic terms or eliminating details to obtain fewer
linguistic terms. In this case, the meaning of each linguistic term changes as a function of the data, and this method can
be used as a supervised learning method.
Using the Fast Wavelet Transform Algorithm is not the only possible way of fixing the meaning of each linguistic term in a
Hierarchical Linguistic Variable. In a more general learning setting, methods more similar to the usual human learning
 A.R. de Soto / Information Sciences 181 (2011) 4394–4408 4407

methods are needed. In these cases, semi-supervised or unsupervised approaches would be more suitable, and different clus-
tering methods can be used. Generally speaking, any clustering method which produces a hierarchical structure of clusters
can be adapted to find the meaning of the linguistic terms of a Hierarchical Linguistic Variable. In [17] a fuzzy hierarchical
clustering was studied, and it can easily be applied to get a Hierarchical Linguistic Variable which follows the partition mod-
el. For this kind of model, it is also possible to apply recursively to any linguistic term a fuzzy version of a linear Support
Vector Machine [21] and so obtain a taxonomy of fuzzy bipartitioned classes.
If an approximate reasoning model is considered, it is possible to use other Hierarchical Clustering Algorithms [24].
However, more careful research is needed into this subject because there is an important difference between a general
fuzzy multi-class classification problem and the problem of obtaining a hierarchical family of fuzzy sets which can model
a Hierarchical Linguistic Variable in the sense defined here. In the present instance, a fixed structural relationship between
the clusters is given, so more information is available. Perhaps this information can be used to obtain general methods of
classification similar to those used by humans.

8. Conclusion

The concept of Linguistic Variable has played a fundamental role in applying the Fuzzy Set Theory to the building of Fuzzy
Rule Based Systems as well as to the development of techniques for Approximate Reasoning. Moreover, Linguistic Variables
must be the foundation for advancing along the Computing With Words path. In this work, a model of a Hierarchical Linguis-
tic Variable has been introduced. It has been shown how (in accordance with the classical definition of a Linguistic Variable)
a very simple hierarchical classification of the linguistic terms can be built in the specific case of dichotomous linguistic vari-
ables. The model uses just one basic term and two operators. The semantics of the linguistic terms is given by a mapping
which directly assigns a fuzzy set to each linguistic term as is usually done in Fuzzy Rule Based Systems. However, in this
model an infinite set of linguistic terms is generated. As opposed to other models of Linguistic Variable which consider an
infinite number of linguistic terms, in this model it is not necessary to define the meaning of the operators which generate
new linguistic terms as operators on the set of fuzzy sets. For example, this way of proceeding is common when linguistic
modifiers are used to generate new linguistic terms, and some fuzzy interpretation is needed to set the meaning of a com-
posite linguistic term.
The set of fuzzy sets which fix the meaning of a Hierarchical Linguistic Variable forms a multiresolution system of func-
tions. Several good examples of these families are given in this work by using the family of basis B-splines functions. Every
family can be characterized by a set of nested intervals defined by points where each higher level is a refinement of the level
below. Using B-splines of different smoothness, linear and non-linear examples can be built. Different nested sequences of
knots allow to the designer create non-symmetrical or non-uniform partitions.
Under this model, the set of linguistic terms and the set of fuzzy sets which give their meaning have the same structure.
That arrangement has several advantages. It allows an adequate interpretation to be given of the capacity of the set of lin-
guistic terms of a linguistic variable to reach an arbitrary degree of accuracy. It is possible to define operators on the set of
linguistic terms as symbolic operations without losing an acceptable interpretation of the operation result as a fuzzy set. In
other words, it is possible to define inner operations on the set of words which always have an adequate meaning given by a
fuzzy set.
Another important issue is that thanks to the properties of multiresolution systems, any fuzzy set can be described in
terms of the basic linguistic terms, and operations between those descriptions can be defined.
Several automatic methods for obtaining the meaning of each linguistic term have been commented upon. Using B-
splines to obtain Fuzzy Rule Based Systems is a well-known method in the field but how to exploit the multiresolution
capacity of the model to improve the construction of accurate and interpretable Fuzzy Rule Based Systems presented here
is a subject that needs further research.
Finally, another interesting line of research is to study how having the same structure in different Linguistic Variables
could allow the building of common-sense rules valid for any linguistic variable which follows that structure and thus allow
the creation of rules which belong to a higher abstraction level.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge the anonymous reviewers for their very careful reading and their useful comments
and suggestions.

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