Elements underlying the specification of requirements

As more and more complex computer-based systems are built, it becomes increasingly more difficult to specify or visualize the system prior to its construction. One way of simplifying these tasks is to view the requirements from multiple viewpoints. However, if these viewpoints examine the requirements using different notations, how can we know if they are consistent? This paper describes the elemental concepts that underlie all requirements. By reducing each view of requirements to networks of these elemental concepts, it becomes possible to better understand the relationships among the views.