Concept

Attempto Controlled English

Overview

Attempto Controlled English (ACE) is a controlled natural language, i.e. a subset of standard English with a restricted syntax and restricted semantics described by a small set of construction and interpretation rules. It has been under development at the University of Zurich since 1995. In 2013, ACE version 6.7 was announced.

ACE can serve as knowledge representation, specification, and query language, and is intended for professionals who want to use formal notations and formal methods, but may not be familiar with them. Though ACE appears perfectly natural—it can be read and understood by any speaker of English—it is in fact a formal language.

ACE and its related tools have been used in the fields of software specifications, theorem proving, proof assistants, text summaries, ontologies, rules, querying, medical documentation and planning.

Here are some simple examples:

Every woman is a human.

A woman is a human.

A man tries-on a new tie. If the tie pleases his wife then the man buys it.

ACE construction rules require that each noun be introduced by a determiner (a, every, no, some, at least 5, ...). Regarding the list of examples above, ACE interpretation rules decide that (1) is interpreted as universally quantified, while (2) is interpreted as existentially quantified. Sentences like "Women are human" do not follow ACE syntax and are consequently not valid.

Interpretation rules resolve the anaphoric references in (3): the tie and it of the second sentence refer to a new tie of the first sentence, while his and the man of the second sentence refer to a man of the first sentence. Thus an ACE text is a coherent entity of anaphorically linked sentences.

The Attempto Parsing Engine (APE) translates ACE texts unambiguously into discourse representation structures (DRS) that use a variant of the language of first-order logic. A DRS can be further translated into other formal languages, for instance AceRules with various semantics, OWL, and SWRL. Translating an ACE text into (a fragment of) first-order logic allows users to reason about the text, for instance to verify, to validate, and to query it.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.

In this stage it is a resultant from previous separate association and apperception processes. Then follows in the second stage of expression in speech, an analysis of that total idea into its parts, in which these parts are always put into close relations with each other. Such relations are called by grammarians subject and predicate, noun and adjective, verb and adverb, &c. The grammatical meaning of these…
Wilhelm Max Wundt, An Introduction to Psychology Translated from the Second German Edition
States what Attempto Controlled English is.
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In the English language this is commonly done, by prefixing, what are called the personal pronouns, to the general word which expresses the event affirmed. _I came_, _you came_, _he_ or _it came_; in these phrases the event of having come is, in the first, affirmed of the speaker; in the second, of the person spoken to; in the third, of some other person, or object. The first formers of language, it may be imagined…
Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments
States what Attempto Controlled English is.
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Every proposition consists of three parts: the Subject, the Predicate, and the Copula. The predicate is the name denoting that which is affirmed or denied. The subject is the name denoting the person or thing which something is affirmed or denied of. The copula is the sign denoting that there is an affirmation or denial; and thereby enabling the hearer or reader to distinguish a proposition from any other kind of…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic
States what Attempto Controlled English is.
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Related ideas

Place in the tradition

Part of Logic translation.

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