Controlled natural language

Controlled natural languages (CNLs) are subsets of natural languages, obtained byrestricting the grammar and vocabulary in orderto reduce or eliminate ambiguity and complexity.Traditionally, controlled languages fall into two major types:those that improve readability for human readers (e.g. non-native speakers),and those that enable reliable automatic semantic analysis of the language.

The first type of languages (often called "simplified" or "technical" languages),for example ASD Simplified TechnicalEnglish,Caterpillar Technical English, IBM's Easy English,are used in the industry to increase the quality of technical documentation,and possibly simplify the (semi-)automatic translation of the documentation.These languages restrict the writer by general rules such as "write short and grammatically simple sentences","use nouns instead of pronouns", "use determiners", and "use active instead of passive". [cite journal
last = Muegge
first = Uwe
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = Controlled language: the next big thing in translation?
journal = ClientSide News Magazine
volume = 7
issue = 7
pages = 21–24
publisher = ClientSide Publications
date = 2007
url = http://www.translationdirectory.com/articles/article1359.php
doi =
id =
accessdate = ]

The second type of languages have a formal logical basis, i.e. they have a formal syntaxand semantics, and can be mapped to an existing formal language, such as first-order logic.Thus, those languages can be used as knowledge-representation languages, and writing ofthose languages is supported by fully automatic consistency and redundancy checks, query answering, etc.

Languages

Existing logic-based controlled natural languages include:

* Attempto Controlled English
* [http://www.jfsowa.com/clce/specs.htm Common Logic Controlled English (CLCE)]
* [http://www.w3.org/RDF/Metalog/docs/pnl.html Metalog's Pseudo Natural Language (PNL)]
* Ordnance Survey [http://www.nesc.ac.uk/action/esi/download.cfm?index=3411 Rabbit]
* [http://www.ics.mq.edu.au/~rolfs/peng/ Processable ENGlish (PENG)]
* Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Business Rules

Other existing controlled natural languages include:

* [http://www.asd-ste100.org ASD Simplified Technical English] (AeroSpace and Defence Industries Association of Europe--formerly AECMA)
* E-Prime
* Gellish
* Newspeak, the fictional language in the dystopia novel 1984 by George Orwell, is a controlled natural language as well as a semi-constructed language.
* Uwe Muegge's [http://www.muegge.cc Controlled Language Optimized for Uniform Translation (CLOUT)]
* Voice of America's Special English

ee also

* Constructed language
* Knowledge representation
* Natural language processing

References

External links

* [http://www.ics.mq.edu.au/~rolfs/controlled-natural-languages/ Controlled Natural Languages] (Macquarie University)
* [http://www.controlledenglish.com/ Overview of Controlled English and HyperSTE, customizable Controlled English checker]
* [http://www.controlledlanguage.com/ Simplus – Simplified English Checker]
* [http://www.acrolinx.com/acrocheck_overview_en.php acrocheck] – Customizable controlled language checker for many authoring environments
* [http://sec.cs.kent.ac.uk/permis/downloads/Level1/policy.shtml PERMIS Policy Editor] uses controlled English in its user interface