A principled approach to grammars for controlled natural languages and predictive editors

DOI10.1007/S10849-012-9167-ZzbMATH Open1305.68198arXiv1211.3643OpenAlexW3102961020WikidataQ57831009 ScholiaQ57831009MaRDI QIDQ2255208FDOQ2255208

Authors: Tobias Kuhn 

Publication date: 9 February 2015

Published in: Journal of Logic, Language and Information (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: Controlled natural languages (CNL) with a direct mapping to formal logic have been proposed to improve the usability of knowledge representation systems, query interfaces, and formal specifications. Predictive editors are a popular approach to solve the problem that CNLs are easy to read but hard to write. Such predictive editors need to be able to "look ahead" in order to show all possible continuations of a given unfinished sentence. Such lookahead features, however, are difficult to implement in a satisfying way with existing grammar frameworks, especially if the CNL supports complex nonlocal structures such as anaphoric references. Here, methods and algorithms are presented for a new grammar notation called Codeco, which is specifically designed for controlled natural languages and predictive editors. A parsing approach for Codeco based on an extended chart parsing algorithm is presented. A large subset of Attempto Controlled English (ACE) has been represented in Codeco. Evaluation of this grammar and the parser implementation shows that the approach is practical, adequate and efficient.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1211.3643

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zbMATH Keywords

anaphoric referencesAttempto Controlled Englishchart parsingcontrolled natural languagespredictive editors

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Logic of natural languages (03B65) Natural language processing (68T50) Linguistics (91F20)

Cites Work

• An efficient context-free parsing algorithm
• Tree adjunct grammars
• Modified Report on the Algorithmic Language ALGOL 60
• Title not available (Why is that?)

Cited In (2)

• Designing efficient controlled languages for ontologies
• Specifying and verbalising answer set programs in controlled natural language

Uses Software

• ALGOL 60
• YACC
• AceRules

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