Representing and aggregating linguistic information based on semantic three-tuple

• Published in: Computers & industrial engineering 2019-06, Vol.132, p.114-123
• Main Authors: Li, Ming-Yang, Fan, Zhi-Ping, Liu, Yun-Zhi, Cao, Ping-Ping
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aggregation operator; Group decision making; Linguistic information; Semantic three-tuple
• ISSN: 0360-8352; 1879-0550
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cie.2019.04.016

•Semantic three-tuple representation method for representing linguistic information is presented.•The definitions and properties of semantic three-tuple are presented.•Three aggregation operators of semantic three-tuple are proposed.•A group decision-making method based on semantic three-tuple is proposed.•Numerical examples are used to illustrate the applicability of semantic three-tuple. This paper analyzes the difference between the linguistic information and other forms of preference information, and finds that linguistic terms contain both definitive information and hesitant information. A new method for representing linguistic information is presented, namely the semantic three-tuple representation. In the method, to describe clearly the linguistic information, a three-tuple is used to represent the support degree, hesitation degree and opposition degree of linguistic information. In this paper, definitions and properties on semantic three-tuple are given, and three aggregation operators on semantic three-tuple are also given. Then, for the group decision-making problem with linguistic information, a method based on semantic three-tuple is presented. Finally, numerical examples are given to illustrate the applicability and effectiveness of the method proposed in this paper.