Controlled natural language as interface language to the semantic web

Abstract

In this paper, I will show how a controlled natural language (CNL) can be used as an interface language to the Semantic Web. Instead of working with a formal language based on RDF that is difficult to write and understand for non-specialists, I will argue that a CNL can be employed to describe resources on the Web (via assertional statements) and to construct ontologies (via terminological statements). I will present a complete rule set written in CNL that allows for efficient reasoning over the assertional and terminological knowledge with the help of a model builder. There is no need to formally encode this knowledge in an RDF- based notation. Everything can be described in a uniform way on the level of the controlled natural language provided that we support the user of the CNL with an intelligent writing tool. Copyright © IICAI 2005.