Rewriting simplified text into a controlled natural language

Abstract

While machine processable Controlled Natural Languages (CNLs) as a natural language interface have proven a popular, unambiguous and user friendly method for non experts to engineer formal knowledge-bases, human-oriented CNLs however remain under-researched despite having found favor within industry over many years. Whether such human orientated CNLs like the machine processable counterparts can be captured automatically as formal knowledge remains an open question. In addition, rewriting all or most of a human-oriented CNL into a machine-oriented CNL could unlock significant silos of general purpose domain knowledge, contained within existing human-oriented CNL content for exploitation by knowledge based systems. This paper explores the feasibility of rewriting a human-orientated CNL represented in Simplified English into a well know machine-oriented CNL represented in ACE CNL and describes preliminary results.