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Specifying and Verbalising Answer Set Programs in Controlled Natural Language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 August 2018

ROLF SCHWITTER Open the ORCID record for ROLF SCHWITTER [Opens in a new window]
ROLF SCHWITTER*
Affiliation:
Department of Computing, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia (e-mail: Rolf.Schwitter@mq.edu.au)
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Abstract

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We show how a bi-directional grammar can be used to specify and verbalise answer set programs in controlled natural language. We start from a program specification in controlled natural language and translate this specification automatically into an executable answer set program. The resulting answer set program can be modified following certain naming conventions and the revised version of the program can then be verbalised in the same subset of natural language that was used as specification language. The bi-directional grammar is parametrised for processing and generation, deals with referring expressions, and exploits symmetries in the data structure of the grammar rules whenever these grammar rules need to be duplicated. We demonstrate that verbalisation requires sentence planning in order to aggregate similar structures with the aim to improve the readability of the generated specification. Without modifications, the generated specification is always semantically equivalent to the original one; our bi-directional grammar is the first one that allows for semantic round-tripping in the context of controlled natural language processing.

Keywords

Bi-directional grammarscontrolled natural languagesanswer set programmingsentence planningexecutable specifications
Type
Original Article
Information
Theory and Practice of Logic Programming , Volume 18 , Special Issue 3-4: 34th International Conference on Logic Programming , July 2018 , pp. 691 - 705
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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