Re: [ontolog-forum] Fwd: MOVED: Re: [ontology-summit] Hackathon: BACnet

[sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Ed,

The issues about how people interpret NLs and how they use CNLs are very complex and highly context dependent.  The issues cannot be summarized in a short explanation that covers all possibilities.

> I read this clarification to say that two humans of reasonable education
> and intelligence who read a text written by a third will agree on the
> interpretation of about 50% of what was written.

No.  I said that the responses that they would generate in any CNL would agree about 50% of the time.  It's not clear what the source of the error might be -- their interpretation of the original text, their use of CNL to express themselves, or some combination of both.

In any case, my estimate of 50% is based on various studies, and those studies showed a high variability.  But all of the studies show that inter-annotator agreement is usually disappointingly low.

That is why I believe that software that analyzes the original NL can do as well or better than software that depends on what some human annotator wrote about the original NL.  (Of course, I am assuming that the NLP software is as intelligent as the software produced by VivoMind Research, LLC.)

> The view that my project takes is that restricted NL is written by
> knowledge engineers who understand how to write it and what it means. The
> idea of the restricted NL is that the statements written by the knowledge
> engineers can be READ by the domain expert, so that s/he can VERIFY that
> the captured intent matches his/her intent....

That is a way of using controlled NLs that has been fairly successful.  I would agree that it's a good way to go.  But note that (a) the authors are highly trained and (b) they use tools that provide an *echo* to the author for verification.

> You might be amused to know that the aerospace industry developed a
> standard for how to write clear requirements in a "restricted" natural
> language, for the purpose of conveying requirements clearly to other
> engineers....
> See: http://www.asd-ste100.org/

Yes.  I'm aware of that work, and I believe it's a good way to go for that purpose. But it is a different purpose.

John

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