To clarify, Tala is *not* a Controlled Natural Language, nor do I propose using a CNL to replace CycL.
Tala is an artificial language that supports unconstrained English syntax, to represent declarative and procedural concepts in unconstrained semantic domains.
> Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 10:57:33 -0400
> From: whitten@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Discussion re reasoning about Time and State with REST interfaces
>
> Philip,
>
> While I understand your desire to promote Controlled Natural Languages
> like Tala, I think it important that folks who haven't delved into Cyc
> realize that the formal logic expressed in CycL also can be viewed in
> a controlled subset of English that is derived from, and is an
> alternate form of the same logical expressions.
>
> I am a strong advocate of CNLs, as most of the long-term Ontolog
> readers know, but I also want the system to be usable to support
> existing computer systems (my personal experience is in Medical
> Informatics), and support drawing conclusions and collecting data
> usable in quality reporting.
>
> David Whitten
> 713-870-3834
>
> On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 7:45 AM, Philip Jackson
> <philipcjacksonjr@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > [corrected typo]
> >
> > John, Ed, and Leo,
> >
> > Although my thesis did not discuss ontological questions in general, I
> > would propose following the thesis approach to represent ontologies: Use an
> > artificial language, such as Tala, based on the syntax of a natural language
> > such as English, to represent ontological information in general. Use other
> > formal languages and notations to represent ontological information as
> > appropriate in various domains.
> >
> > This supports a point made earlier in this thread by Ed and John, that no
> > single model (or language) is adequate for representing all ontological
> > information.
> >
> > Phil
> >
> > Thesis information:
> > http://www.philjackson.prohosting.com/PCJacksonPhDThesisInformation.html
> >> Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 00:19:22 -0400
> >> From: sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx
> >> To: eslowry@xxxxxxxxxxxx; ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Discussion re reasoning about Time and State
> >> with REST interfaces
> >>
> >> Ed and Leo,
> >>
> >> EL
> >> > Cyc ... expressed its knowledge in a formal language which
> >> > was deficient on 7 simplicity-related leading edges compared
> >> > with a language design distributed at IBM in 1973.
> >>
> >> As you know, I was favorably impressed with your PROSE language
> >> (Properties and Relations of Objects Simply Expressed) and the
> >> software you developed to support it. I have always believed
> >> that we needed highly readable languages supported with tools
> >> to integrate them with mainstream commercial software.
> >>
> >> EL
> >> > I would propose translating the Cyc ontology into a better
> >> > language, redeveloping the Cyc inferencing capabilities to
> >> > exploit the simplicity, and seeing what improvement is made.
> >>
> >> PROSE or something like it might have been a good step in the right
> >> direction in 1991. I believe that a PROSE-like notation that could
> >> integrate procedural programming *and* logic programming *and* DBMS
> >> might have been a winner -- it would have been like Java on steroids
> >> with logic-based tools.
> >>
> >> In 1991, Cyc was still a part of MCC, which had a group working
> >> on advanced software development tools. But the MCC structure
> >> did not promote any collaboration between projects. In any case,
> >> Lenat wanted to do AI research, not software development.
> >>
> >> Leo
> >> > Cyc wandered in the wilderness... before eventually settling on a
> >> > mostly first-order logic language, CycL. But this was fairly late.
> >> >
> >> > Lenat, Douglas; Ramanathan Guha. The Evolution of CycL, The Cyc
> >> > Representation Language... SIGART Bulletin, June, 1991, pp. 84-87.
> >>
> >> Since Cyc was founded in 1984, I would consider 1991 fairly early.
> >> They have been using CycL for over 23 years.
> >>
> >> Around that time, I urged Lenat to devote more effort to applications.
> >> But he said that they had a limited amount of funding, and he wanted
> >> to devote all the funds to research. I tried to make the point that
> >> application development would bring in more funding than it would
> >> consume. But he still believed that he needed to a bigger knowledge
> >> base before he could begin to develop applications.
> >>
> >> I don't know the details of why Lenat and Guha split. Guha said that
> >> the typical users needed a simpler subset of logic than CycL. He went
> >> to Apple, where he developed an early version of RDF, but he continued
> >> to use a LISP-like notation. In the late 1990s, Guha collaborated
> >> with Tim Bray at Netscape on what became RDF.
> >>
> >> John
> >>
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