Modelling generalization and other class-to-parent relationships.

The UML contains the concepts of generalization and realization between two modelling elements intending to match the OO concepts of subclassing and type conformance. With particular focus on the concept of generalization we show that: by choosing a single (non-precisely de ned)
semantics, these concepts are too narrowly de ned to model real-world variations; they are incapable of expressing the more advanced functionality implicit in their theoretical counterparts. We present the outline of
a solution to these problems whereby, in order to support variability and generality of these concepts, we create a series of templates which can be combined to create modelling languages with the appropriate semantic.