Improving Natural Language Specifications with Ontologies.
Sven J. Körner, Torben Brumm · Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering · 2009
User requirements are usually written in textual form. Dealing with natural language textual specifications is complex. Analysts 1 have to cover all aspects of the requirements engineering process when working with the customer, such as work flows, psychological issues, and linguistic problems. We show how analysts can be supported during requirements elicitation and documentation. We present an approach to improve natural language requirements specifications using ontologies. We demonstrate by several examples from real requirements how an ontological reasoner called RESI 2 can uncover gaps, inaccuracies, ambiguities and ask the user to clarify them. In many cases, it supports the analyst by giving a small number of reasonable suggestions to choose from. The implementation of RESI is currently in progress.