Abstract

In this research, tools designed from the materialist ontology perspective and Spanish grammar were used to analyze syntactically and ontologically the concept of energy in texts about natural sciences and biology in the government of Chile. The results obtained show that analyzed studies explicitly present energy as a property of matter. These same texts have a syntactic assertiveness, presenting energy in 57 % of sentences as part of the predicate, with a material reference. On the other hand, the most frequent ontological error found is the presentation of energy as an object. Finally, it is concluded that there are ontologically ambiguous verbs that can generate confusions in the meaning of energy and that a large part of ontological and syntax errors is due the absence of a material reference within a sentence. © 2020 Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. All rights reserved.