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A hybrid (visual/natural) controlled language

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Abstract

We define the notion of controlled hybrid language that allows information share and interaction between a controlled natural language (specified by a context-free grammar) and a controlled visual language (specified by a Symbol-Relation grammar). We present the controlled hybrid language INAUT, used to represent nautical charts of the French Naval and Hydrographic Service (SHOM) and their companion texts (Instructions nautiques).

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Notes

  1. Since \(\{a^1,a^2,b^2,b^1\}\) is a set, there is no intrinsic order among its elements. But there is nevertheless an order in the word 5 and, despite appearances, this order is not provided by the numeric superscripts (which can be arbitrary), but solely by the “next” relations of set \(\{{\rm next}(a^1,a^2),{\rm next}(a^2,b^2),{\rm next}(b^2,b^1)\}\).

  2. A regular closed set is the topological closure of the interior of some set.

  3. Notice that these are topological and not geometric arrangements. In other words: the fact that we have used circles to draw shapes in Fig. 3 is unimportant, a region can be any shape, even non-connected and with “holes”. All that counts is whether x and y have, or not, a nonempty intersection, whether this intersection is a region or not, and whether x is, or not, included in y and vice-versa. For example, both in \(\textsf {EC}\) and in \(\textsf {PO}\), the intersection of x and y is nonempty, the difference is that in \(\textsf {PO}\) the intersection \(x\cap y\) is a region, while in \(\textsf {EC}\), it is part of the boundary of x and of y, and hence is not a region.

  4. We use a sans-serif font (as in \(\textsf {NTPP}\)) for logical predicates, and a roman font (as in \({\rm NTPP}\)) for r-items in the SR grammar.

  5. Our notion of language hybridity differs from the one given in Costagliola et al. (1999), which deals with visual languages only. In Costagliola et al. (1999), a hybrid language is defined as a visual language using both logical (Plex syntactic model) and spatial relations (Box syntactic model).

  6. http://www.shom.fr/les-produits/produits-nautiques/ouvrages-nautiques/instructions-nautiques/.

  7. http://www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/nsd/cpdownload.htm.

  8. https://www.ukho.gov.uk/PRODUCTSANDSERVICES/PAPERPUBLICATIONS/Pages/NauticalPubs.aspx.

  9. With the exception of Seaspeak (Strevens and Johnson 1983), a controlled natural language defined in 1985 by the International Maritime Lecturers Association. In 2001 it evolved into SMCP (Standard Marine Communication Phrases IMO 2005) which is still used today. These controlled natural languages, dedicated to oral communication between ships, are “human-oriented” (of type c in Kuhn 2014, p. 125).

  10. We have omitted coord attributes and used name attribute values as node identifiers.

  11. http://www.iho.int/iho_pubs/IHO_Download.htm.

  12. Although, it is noteworthy to mention the approach of Freund et al. (1998) that uses a boosting algorithm, RankBoost, to learn to order a set of elements encoded in terms of a set of features depending on the learning corpus and which is used, inter alia, by Walker et al. (2001) to train a sentence planner.

  13. http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/ilastic.

  14. In PENS, the naturalness criterion refers to the relation of a controlled language to the natural language it is based upon. Even if we consider controlled visual languages as being based, in some sense, on more general “natural” visual languages (as discussed, for example, in Machin 2007), similarly to the way architectural (“formal”) blueprints are based on the architect’s primordial (“natural”) sketches, we consider that such a relation would be much more difficult and ambiguous to describe than in the case of textual languages, and hence is not necessarily appropriate for a general classification scheme.

  15. http://neo4j.com/.

  16. https://github.com/Toblerity/Shapely.

  17. https://www.mysql.com/.

  18. http://www.nltk.org/.

  19. http://www.dabeaz.com/ply/.

  20. https://github.com/terre-virtuelle/navisu.

  21. http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/java/.

  22. An ill-formed splitting would be a splitting not respecting the syntax, semantics, style and legacy conventions.

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  1. Télécom Bretagne & UMR CNRS 6285 Lab-STICC, Institut Mines-Télécom, Technopôle Brest Iroise CS 83818, 29238, Brest Cedex 3, France

    Yannis Haralambous, Julie Sauvage-Vincent & John Puentes

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  1. Yannis Haralambous
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Correspondence to Yannis Haralambous.

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Haralambous, Y., Sauvage-Vincent, J. & Puentes, J. A hybrid (visual/natural) controlled language. Lang Resources & Evaluation 51, 93–129 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10579-016-9339-6

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