Attempto Controlled English.
Norbert E. Fuchs · 2000
Abstract. Attempto Controlled English (ACE) – a subset of English that can be unambiguously translated into first-order logic – is a knowledge representation language. To support automatic reasoning in ACE we have developed the Attempto Reasoner RACE (Reasoning in ACE). RACE proves that one ACE text is the logical consequence of another one, and gives a justification for the proof in ACE. Variations of the basic proof procedure permit query answering and consistency checking. Reasoning in RACE is supported by auxiliary first-order axioms and by evaluable functions. The current implementation of RACE is based on the model generator Satchmo. 1 Reasoning in Natural Language Knowledge representation requires a language suited to the problem domain investigated. Traditional candidates for knowledge representation languages are natural language and formal languages. Discussing the pros and cons of natural language versus formal languages one could easily overlook that natural language is not on a par with these other languages, but plays an important and privileged role. First, it is the prototypical means of human communication, and also offers itself as a user-friendly means to interact with computers. Second, it serves as the meta-language for all other languages, informal or formal ones. Third, natural language effectively serves as its own meta-language, thus supporting representation, explanation, argumentation, and analysis all in one and the same notation. Fourth, natural language needs no extra learning effort, and – provided we exercise some care to avoid vagueness and ambiguity – is easy to use and to understand. Some researchers go as far as to consider natural language “the ultimate knowledge representation language ” [18]. Arguably, natural language also has a great potential for semantic web applications. This potential will be explored by the EU Network of Excellence “Reasoning on the Web with Rules and Semantics (REWERSE)”. Likewise, we use natural language to perform common sense reasoning that involves logical inference operations like deduction, abduction, and induction. Knowing that Every company that buys a machine gets a discount. Hardware Corporation is a company and buys a machine.