Can Controlled Languages Scale to the Web
Jonathan Robert Pool · 2006
In a multilingual Semantic Web, authors might write in precise, expressive varieties of diverse languages. Do such controlled languages exist? Of 41 candidates, just 4 were (1) designed for multiple domains and genres and (2) documented enough for evaluation. A sample of Web statements on health and human rights revealed limited expressivity or precision in each language. The most expressive one avoided structural ambiguity but allowed semantic ambiguity that could frustrate human and machine comprehension. The possibility of a practical Web-scale controlled language remains undemonstrated but unrefuted.