How words can tell what actions are doing∗

This paper describes an approach to use embedded descriptions of agent actions in task ontologies and agent communication messages compliant to FIPA ACL [4, 5]. Ontological terms denoting actions are extended with semantical descriptive decorations in such a way that an agent requested to perform a well defined action is able to extract the formal description of the activity bound to this action from the ontology and to execute it, or to forward it to an inference machine. Further an extension of FIPA SL [7] is presented that allows the integration of this approach in existing agent systems.