1、 ISO 2015 Language resource management Controlled natural language (CNL) Part 1: Basic concepts and principles Gestion des ressources linguistiques Langage naturel contrl (CNL) Partie 1: Notions de base et principes TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION ISO/TS 24620-1 Reference number ISO/TS 24620-1:2015(E) First
2、 edition 2015-03-15 ISO/TS 24620-1:2015(E)ii ISO 2015 All rights reserved COPYRIGHT PROTECTED DOCUMENT ISO 2015 All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified, no part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized otherwise in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photoc
3、opying, or posting on the internet or an intranet, without prior written permission. Permission can be requested from either ISO at the address below or ISOs member body in the country of the requester. ISO copyright office Case postale 56 CH-1211 Geneva 20 Tel. + 41 22 749 01 11 Fax + 41 22 749 09
4、47 E-mail copyrightiso.org Web www.iso.org Published in Switzerland ISO/TS 24620-1:2015(E)Foreword iv Introduction v 1 Scope . 1 2 T erms and definitions . 1 3 General view of controlled natural language 4 3.1 Overview 4 3.2 Properties of controlled natural languages 4 3.3 Controlled natural languag
5、es compared with natural languages . 5 3.4 Controlled natural languages compared with special-purpose languages . 5 3.5 Criteria of adequacy 5 4 Benefits and usages of c ontr olled natur al language . 6 4.1 Applications of controlled natural language . 6 4.2 Users of controlled natural language . 6
6、4.3 Benefits of controlled natural language 6 5 Levels of restricting controlled natural languages . 7 5.1 Overview 7 5.2 Linguistic levels 7 5.3 Extra-linguistic levels 7 5.4 Classification of controlled natural languages . 7 6 General principles of controlled natural language . 7 6.1 Two viewpoint
7、s of principles for controlled natural language . 7 6.2 Different orientations for the principles of controlled natural language . 7 7 Concluding remarks 8 Bibliography 9 ISO 2015 All rights reserved iii Contents Page ISO/TS 24620-1:2015(E) Foreword ISO (the International Organization for Standardiz
8、ation) is a worldwide federation of national standards bodies (ISO member bodies). The work of preparing International Standards is normally carried out through ISO technical committees. Each member body interested in a subject for which a technical committee has been established has the right to be
9、 represented on that committee. International organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO, also take part in the work. ISO collaborates closely with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) on all matters of electrotechnical standardization. The procedures used t
10、o develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance are described in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular the different approval criteria needed for the different types of ISO documents should be noted. This document was drafted in accordance with the editorial rules of t
11、he ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2 (see www.iso.org/directives). Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent rights. ISO shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights. Details of any patent rights identified d
12、uring the development of the document will be in the Introduction and/or on the ISO list of patent declarations received (see www.iso.org/patents). Any trade name used in this document is information given for the convenience of users and does not constitute an endorsement. For an explanation on the
13、 meaning of ISO specific terms and expressions related to conformity assessment, as well as information about ISOs adherence to the WTO principles in the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) see the following URL: Foreword - Supplementary information The committee responsible for this document is ISO/T
14、C 37, Terminology and other language and content resources, Subcommittee SC 4, Language resource management. ISO 24620 consists of the following parts, under the general title Language resource management Controlled natural language (CNL): Part 1: Basic concepts and principlesiv ISO 2015 All rights
15、reserved ISO/TS 24620-1:2015(E) Introduction The long history of the study of controlled natural language (CNL) has proved its effectiveness especially in technical documentation, technical communication, and business communication. In time, CNL has come to be applied in different ways in such field
16、s as information management, librarianship, terminology management, and legal documents. Its commercial impact was established in the 1990s due to its effectiveness in information and communication technology applications like machine translation and mobile communication. Moreover, text simplificati
17、on, a major task of CNL, promotes efficient communication with regard to all kinds of language use on the web. An example of this is the simplified English Wikipedia. This part of ISO 24620 aims both to define major concepts related to CNL and to outline the scope of CNL and its various applications
18、 in relation to language resource management. These include the following: a) the pre-editing of texts for CNL in preparation for machine translation; b) the development of new or the re-use of existing controlled vocabularies for CNL; c) the structuring and harmonization of content for content mana
19、gement; d) technical writing including the formulation of standards; e) facilitating communication with and for persons with disabilities (PWD), for instance, in ambient assisted living (AAL) or augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). In this connection, special attention is given to aspec
20、ts of interoperability: from technical interoperability through semantic interoperability to content interoperability. As a Technical Specification (TS), this part of ISO 24620 identifies the following: the environments of CNL used for the purposes and applications of all kinds (e.g. computer-assist
21、ed technical writing); the relationships to language resource management and related systems; the potential for new applications (e.g. in the processes, whether manual or automatic, of knowledge acquisition and knowledge fusion based on and linked to the web). This part of ISO 24620 is the first in
22、a planned series of International Standards on CNL. Subsequent parts will focus on issues specific to particular viewpoints and/or applications such as particular CNLs, CNL interfaces, the implementation of CNLs, and evaluation techniques for CNL. ISO 2015 All rights reserved v Language resource man
23、agement Controlled natural language (CNL) Part 1: Basic concepts and principles 1 Scope As part of a drive to provide international standards for language resource management, this part of ISO 24620 on controlled natural language (CNL) sets out the principles of CNL and its utilization together with
24、 the relevant supporting technology. However, this part of ISO 24620 also aims to introduce a general view of CNL with its objectives and characteristics and provide a scheme for classifying a range of CNLs. This part of ISO 24620 additionally specifies certain normalizing principles of CNLs that co
25、ntrol the use of natural languages in particular domains and are also oriented towards areas of practical application. These areas include public administrative communications, search optimization, and the management of automatic question-answering systems, but the current version of this part of IS
26、O 24620 does not address any issue involving these applications directly. 2 T erms a nd definiti ons For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply. 2.1 ar t if i cial lang uag e language (2.11) that has been specifically devised for some applications Note 1 to entry: T
27、he grammar of an artificial language is formulated systematically for some specific purposes of its used in practical applications especially in the area of human or human-machine communications. 2.2 authoring writing a document such as a report, manual, article, or book 2.3 comprehension understand
28、ing the content (2.4) of a document 2.4 content information content information contained in or conveyed by a language (2.11), which can be in a written, spoken, or some other forms such as images 2.5 content managementcontrolling the content (2.4) of a text (2.21) or the media in general while anal
29、ysing or revising it Note 1 to entry: This includes version control of revised documents, contents in versions of similar documents, and the management of relations between items in a document. TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION ISO/TS 24620-1:2015(E) ISO 2015 All rights reserved 1 ISO/TS 24620-1:2015(E) 2.6 c
30、ontrolled natural language controlled language CNL subset of natural languages (2.12) whose grammars and dictionaries have been restricted in order to reduce or eliminate both ambiguity and complexity Note 1 to entry: As a generic, CNL is an uncountable noun that refers to the abstract properties of
31、 all controlled natural languages and not to a particular natural language or application for a specific purpose. It is engineered (i.e. constructed) with a view to reducing or eliminating ambiguity and complexity and aims both to make it easier for human readers particularly non-native users, non-e
32、xperts, and people with limited comprehension (2.3) to read a text (2.21) and to improve the computational processing of a text. Note 2 to entry: CNL is an engineered (i.e. constructed) language that is based on a particular natural language, but is more restrictive as regards lexicon, syntax, or se
33、mantics, while at the same time preserving most of its natural properties. Here, CNL is a countable noun. 2.7 controlled vocabulary CV list of lexical or phrasal items that are selected for the purpose of improving readability (2.15) in a particular domain Note 1 to entry: Controlled vocabulary is a
34、lso used in a more specific sense in applications such as a) the field of information and documentation, where it is defined as a list of words or phrases authorized for indexing SOURCE: ISO 5127:2001(en), 4.2.2.1.03, and b) in the field of health informatics, where it is defined as a finite set of
35、values that represent the only allowed values for a data item SOURCE: CDISC Clinical Research Glossary version 8.0, 2009. In the field of health informatics, these values may be codes, text, or numeric SOURCE: ISO 11616:2012(en), 3.1.7. Note 2 to entry: Most controlled vocabularies target a specific
36、, narrow domain. Unlike CNL, they do not deal with grammatical issues (i.e. how to combine the terms needed to write complete sentences), but a good number of CNL approaches, especially domain-specific ones, include controlled vocabularies. 2.8 cooperative work activity or result of working together
37、 to achieve the same goal Note 1 to entry: Work carried out by more than one person in a collaborative way (e.g. technical writers and editors putting together a manual). 2.9 formal language language (2.11) that has been devised for logical inferences or programming applications with a finite list o
38、f symbols and a finite set of formation rules based on these symbols that define well-formed sentences and also with a system that interprets these sentences 2.10 interoperabilityachievement of partial or total compatibility between heterogeneous data models by the mapping of metadata 2.11 language
39、system of signs paired with meanings, thus, being used as a means of conveying information2 ISO 2015 All rights reserved ISO/TS 24620-1:2015(E) 2.12 natural language NL language (2.11) with its origin unknown, but continuously developing sometimes in idiosyncratic ways as is used conventionally for
40、human communications 2.13 linguistic structure composition of a language (2.11) at the level of sound, word, phrase, sentence, meaning, and discourse Note 1 to entry: The science of language is understood to consist of phonology (sound), morphology (word units), syntax (sentential structure), semant
41、ics (meaning, information), and pragmatics (discourse, context). 2.14 pre-editing modification of a text (2.21) before it is submitted to a specific processing (e.g. machine translation) 2.15 readability ease of processing a text (2.21) for its comprehension (2.3) 2.16 re-use use a document or data
42、for purposes in addition to those for which it was originally designed Note 1 to entry: Ability to use existing documents for new documents. This includes making a product manual for a new version of the product and one for a similar version. 2.17 rewriting producing a new version of a text (2.21) b
43、y changing its lexical, sentential, or textual structures while keeping its original content (2.4) 2.18 s i mpl i f ic at ion process of reducing complexity Note 1 to entry: A procedure such as simplified language(2.19) that makes content (2.4) simpler. 2.19 s i mpl i f ie d l a n g u a g e language
44、 (2.11) generated through a simplification (2.18) process 2.20 special language special-purpose language SPL language (2.11) used in a subject-specific field and also characterized by the use of specific linguistic means of expression Note 1 to entry: The stricter the conventions of an SPL are syste
45、matized and made obligatory, the more they converge with CNL. 2.21 text data in the form of characters, symbols, words, phrases, paragraphs, sentences, tables, or other character arrangements intended to convey a meaning and whose interpretation is essentially based on the knowledge of some natural
46、language (2.12) or artificial language (2.1) SOURCE: ISO/IEC 2382-1:1993 ISO 2015 All rights reserved 3 ISO/TS 24620-1:2015(E) 2.22 tractability computational tractability capability of being controlled, analysed, or generated 3 General view of controlled natural language 3.1 Overview Controlled nat
47、ural language (CNL) is a type of human language that is restricted for certain practical purposes such as machine translation and writing manuals. The main objective is to resolve lexical and structural ambiguity, and this is often achieved by reducing structural complexities, thereby, improving rea
48、dability. However, the application of this restriction does not, in itself, mean that a controlled natural language (CNL) is a simplified language (SL). CNLs can be further defined by a) analysing other different kinds of controlled natural language, b) comparing controlled natural languages with na
49、tural languages (NLs), c) comparing controlled natural languages with special-purpose languages (SPLs), and d) comparing controlled natural languages with artificial languages. 3.2 Properties of controlled natural languages Over the years, CNL has been known as processable, simplified, technical, structured, or basic language, but controlled natural language is now the accepted term. A wide variety of such languages have been designed over the last four decades. They include Basic English, 10Caterpillar Fun
