Attempto Controlled English - Not Just Another Logic Specification Language

The specification language Attempto Controlled English (ACE) is a controlled natural language, i.e. a subset of standard English with a domain-specific vocabulary and a restricted grammar. The restriction of full natural language to a controlled subset is essential for ACE to be suitable for specification purposes. The main goals of this restriction are to reduce ambiguity and vagueness inherent in full natural language and to make ACE computer processable. ACE specifications can be unambiguously translated into logic specification languages, and can be queried and executed. In brief, ACE allows domain specialists to express specifications in familiar natural language and combine this with the rigour of formal specification languages.

[1]  Graeme Hirst,et al.  Context as a Spurious Concept , 1997, ArXiv.

[2]  Norbert E. Fuchs.  Specifications are (preferably) executable , 1992, Softw. Eng. J..

[3]  Stephen G. Pulman,et al.  A Method for Controlling the Production of Specifications in Natural Language , 1995, Comput. J..

[4]  Norbert E. Fuchs,et al.  Attempto Controlled English (ACE) , 1996, ArXiv.

[5]  Yves Deville,et al.  Logic programming - systematic program development , 1990, International series in logic programming.

[6]  Jonathan P. Bowen,et al.  Ten Commandments of Formal Methods , 1995, Computer.

[7]  Uwe Reyle,et al.  Dealing with Ambiguities by Underspecification: Construction, Representation and Deduction , 1993, J. Semant..

[8]  Terence Parsons,et al.  Events in the Semantics of English: A Study in Subatomic Semantics , 1990 .

[9]  Robert Balzer,et al.  A 15 Year Perspective on Automatic Programming , 1985, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.

[10]  Jonathan P. Bowen,et al.  Seven More Myths of Formal Methods , 1995, IEEE Softw..

[11]  Bertrand Meyer,et al.  On Formalism in Specifications , 1985, IEEE Software.

[12]  H. Alshawi,et al.  The Core Language Engine , 1994 .

[13]  Dov M. Gabbay,et al.  Direct deductive computation on discourse representation structures , 1994 .

[14]  Anthony Hall,et al.  Seven myths of formal methods , 1990, IEEE Software.

[15]  Marta Kutas,et al.  When temporal terms belie conceptual order , 1998, Nature.

[16]  Jeannette M. Wing.  A specifier's introduction to formal methods , 1990, Computer.

[17]  Michael A. Covington,et al.  GULP 3.1: An extension of Prolog for unification-based grammar , 1994 .

[18]  Robert A. Kowalski,et al.  Variants of the Event Calculus , 1995, ICLP.

[19]  Pierre Flener,et al.  Specifications are necessarily informal or: Some more myths of formal methods , 1998, J. Syst. Softw..

[20]  David R. Barstow.  A Perspective on Automatic Programming , 1984 .

[21]  Michael A. Jackson,et al.  Software requirements and specifications - a lexicon of practice, principles and prejudices , 1995 .

[22]  Mats Rooth,et al.  Structural Ambiguity and Lexical Relations , 1991, ACL.

[23]  Uwe Reyle,et al.  From Discourse to Logic - Introduction to Modeltheoretic Semantics of Natural Language, Formal Logic and Discourse Representation Theory , 1993, Studies in linguistics and philosophy.