Toward a theory of natural conceptualization

The focus of this paper is on the early phases of ER-modeling consisting of the primary conceptualization of the underlying application domain. To this end we introduce a process model for the generation of meaningful concepts for a domain description. In virtue of its close relation with cognitive activity, this process model also enables the modeler as well as the user to comprehend the concepts of the resulting domain in a natural way. Beyond this goal, natural conceptualization opens the possibility for the introduction of a uniform representation enabling the efficient combination of knowledge obtained from different stake holders during a modeling process.