Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR for Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

1. Semantic Features SBVR Adds to ISO 704 & 1087-1Donald Chapin +Using Natural Language Grammar and SBVRto Author Unambiguous Business Governance DocumentsPaper co-authored by Donald Chapin & John Hall ISO TC 37 Plenary - Controlled Natural Language Workshop June 20, 2015 Donald Chapin Co-chair OMG Business Modeling & Integration Domain Task ForceOMG Liaison to ISO TC 37 and its SubcommitteesCo-chair OMG SBVR Revision Task ForceMember, Terminology Subcommittee, British Standards Institute John Hall Co-chair OMG Regulatory Compliance SIGChair OMG BMM Revision Task Force Business Semantics Ltd.London, UK Donald.Chapin@BusinessSemantics.com www.BusinessSemantics.com Model SystemsLondon, UK John.hall@modelsystems.co.uk www.modelsystems.co.uk

2. Agenda • The Problem and Key Challenge • Business Audience – Not IT Audience • Subset of Natural Language Grammar – Not Artificial Grammar • Unambiguous Words & Phrases • Unambiguous Definitions & Sentences • Conclusion Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

3. 1. The Problem and Key Challenge • Ambiguity in business communication, introduces avoidable business risks. • Especially true in business governance documents, • Sometimes these business risks are very costly, even catastrophic, to the organization involved. • The key challenge is to remove ambiguity in governance documents – • without business authors having to learn new grammar rules. Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

4. 2. Business Audience – Not IT Audience • SBVR Terminological Dictionaries and Rulebooks • Document the meaning of terms and sentences that business authors intend when they use them in their business communications, • as evidenced in their written documentation, such as: • contracts, • product/service specifications, and • governance and regulatory compliance documents. • Are designed to be used for business purposes, • without any reference to information systems. Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

5. 80% of SBVR Specification and SBVR Content What SBVR Is • “Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Business Rules” (SBVR) • Effectively two specifications in one i.e. a semantic model for: • terminological dictionary (formal terminology, SBVR vocabulary) - as a cohesive set of interconnected concepts, not just a list of terms and definitions with a formal logic interpretation, and • behavioural guidance (policy, rules, etc.) that govern the actions of subject of the terminological ontology (formal terminology). • Designed to enable natural language sentences to be written so: • they can be read unambiguously by business people, and • interpreted unambiguously in formal logic by computers. Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

6. How SBVR Relates to Existing Language Resources Business Terminology + Rules Business Glossary: • Noun Concepts, Definitions & Primary Terms + Taxonomy: • General/Specific + Whole/Part Hierarchical Relationships + Thesaurus: • Synonyms, Acronyms, Abbreviations, etc. + Multilingual • Instances of Concepts e.g. Business Events & Business Entities • Verb concepts • Relations among Concepts + Semantically Rich Vocabulary (terminological ontology): • Relations among Instances of Concepts • Definitional Rules • Definitions, Relationships & Rules specified in formal logic + Behavioural Business Rules: • Rules Governing Business Actions = Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

7. SBVR is Built on Foundation of ISO Terminology • Adopts ISO Terminology standards (ISO 704/1087) concepts and builds on them as its foundation • Adds many semantic features for much richer semantics • Adds an ISO Common Logic formal interpretation to the semantically enriched ISO Terminology standards • Adds Semantic Formulations to connect to natural language grammar structures for • formal interpretation of natural language definitions and rule statements Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

8. What SBVR Adds to ISO 704 & 1087-1 • SBVR Is a Terminological Dictionary – Plus … • Context for sharing meanings and designations • Unambiguous understanding of definitions • Support for repeating patterns in sentence clauses • Unambiguous understanding of sentences, especially policies and rules Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

9. 2.2 Terminological Dictionaries are for People; Data Models are for IT Systems • Terminological dictionaries document the meanings intended by business authors for words and phrases they use in their business documents. • Terminological dictionaries are created and used by business people to communicate clearly. • For example, ISO 1087-1_2000 Terminology work - Vocabulary - Part 1: Theory and application defines the meaning of the terms used in ISO 704:2009 Terminology work – Principles and methods. • Data Models, and their data definitions, document the data structures processed in IT systems. • These models are created and used by IT professionals for design of IT systems. • For example, ISO 30042 Systems to manage terminology, knowledge, and content – TermBase eXchange (TBX) is a data model that documents XML data structures for exchanging terminological database content. • Terminological dictionaries and data models are both important but serve very different audiences and purposes. • Neither is an adequate substitute for the other. Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

10. Become a Body of Shared Meanings via Definitions & Examples body ofmeaning body ofmeaning Meanings Unexpressed: • Concepts • Noun Concepts • Verb Concepts • Propositions • Questions Meanings Unexpressed: • Concepts • Noun Concepts • Verb Concepts • Propositions • Questions SBVR is NOT about Information Shared by a semantic community SBVR IS about concepts in people’s minds Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

11. SBVR is based on Communities Semantic community Body of shared meanings Noun concepts, verb concepts, business rules Shares Speech community Speech community Represents Speech community Business vocabulary Terms, names, verbs, keywords Speech community Shares Speech community Speech community Speech community e.g. community speaking the same natural language e.g. specialists such as lawyers, accountants, engineers Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

12. Meanings and Representations Shared by a semantic community Shared Meanings Shared Guidance Business Rules Permissions and Possibilities Shared Concepts Verb Concepts Noun Concepts Shared by a speech community of the semantic community Shared by a semantic community Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

13. Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

14. Become a Body of Shared Meanings via Definitions & Examples E X P R E S S I O N body ofmeaning body ofmeaning interpretation representation Expressions of Representations In a language: • Terms • Names • Identifiers • Verb Concept Wordings • Definitions • Statements • Text • Non-verbal Designations Meanings Unexpressed: • Concepts • Noun Concepts • Verb Concepts • Propositions • Questions Meanings Unexpressed: • Concepts • Noun Concepts • Verb Concepts • Propositions • Questions Communication: Meaning vs. Representation Shared by a semantic community Shared by speech communities Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

15. Meanings and Representations Shared by speech communities Shared by a semantic community Shared Meanings Representations Signifiers, definitions and supporting details Shared Guidance Business Rule Statements Business Rules Other Guidance Statements Permissions and Possibilities Shared Concepts Verb Concepts Verb Concept Wordings Noun Concepts Definitions Terms & Appellations Shared by a speech community of the semantic community Shared by a semantic community Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

16. 2.1 Different Terminological Dictionaries for Different Audiences (Speech Communities) • An organization typically has three speech communities that use the same natural language, each with a distinct terminological dictionary: • Employees: jargon, abbreviations, transaction codes, form numbers, etc. But much of the vocabulary would be in understandable business language. • Would usually be the most comprehensive vocabulary, providing default terms for the others. • Legal: for contracts, product and service specifications, compliance reporting, etc. • Would be formal, include standard legal and industry terminology, and be strictly policed. • Public: for advertisements, public-facing web sites, scripts for helpdesks, etc. • Would be everyday language - and probably also be strictly policed. • There would probably also be smaller, specialized speech communities, such as accountancy and finance. Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

17. Terms and Speech Community Terminological Dictionaries A speech community may not require all the concepts shared by its semantic community to be in its terminological dictionary. Each concept must have a preferred designation and may have additional designations that are synonyms in each terminological dictionary. A synonym for a given concept in one terminological dictionary may be a preferred term for that concept in another terminological dictionary. A synonym might not be a preferred term in any terminological dictionary – but may be a synonym in more than one terminological dictionary. The same terms may be used across all the speech communities’ terminological dictionaries for some – perhaps many – concepts. Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

18. 2.3 Importance of Context • Homonyms are a fact of life in organizations, especially in legal documents and regulations. • A homonym is the same word or phrase designating different concepts in different contexts within the same speech community terminological dictionary. • Sometimes the term for a more general concept is the term for one or more subcategory concepts in a particular context, especially within a series of forms, screens or reports. This is a special case of homonym. • At the heart of terminology science is the principle that there is a one-to-one relation, in a given context, between a given word or phrase and the concept that it designates. • Homonyms need a disambiguation context Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

19. SBVR Contexts for Homonyms • TBX + SBVR provides these disambiguation contexts for the 1:1 relation between part of speech words/phrases and the concepts they designate: speech community (default highest level) subject field (discipline, profession, industry) designation context(context concept) Definition:conceptthat characterizes the domain of usage within which theexpression of arepresentation has a unique meaning for a givenspeech community Example:customer(Car Rentals): rents cars Example:customer(Vehicle Sales): buys a car at the end of its rental life subject concept (concept having a property attributed to its instances) part of speech(kind of concept) designation valid for period Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

20. How Context can be Specified • In terminological dictionaries, the context within which the preferred term and each of its synonyms have exactly one meaning is explicitly stated in the terminological entry. • When authoring business documents, there are a number of techniques to make the context explicit, thus minimizing the likelihood of linguistic analysis engines getting it wrong: • Including the intended audience (speech community), the subject field(s), and document applicability dates as document properties • Including a subject field and/or context concept as metadata in the document’s outline headings • Noting the subject field and/or context concept in a (xxxx, yyyy) notation after the word or phrase. Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

21. 3 Subset of Natural Language Grammar – Not Artificial Grammar • As we said earlier, the key challenge is to remove ambiguity in governance documents – • without business authors having to learn new grammar rules. • Requires using what business people already know: natural language • Special-purpose terms defined in a terminological dictionary. • Subset of natural language grammar structures selected based on least ambiguous grammar feature options • Any new artificial language or artificial extensions to natural language will never be used in practice for business communication – given the pressures of operating a 21st century organization. • Once artificial extensions to natural language are considered as a possibility, the whole approach is on a slippery slope • from making it easy for business people to communicate unambiguously • to making it easy for IT developers. Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

22. 3.1 Keeping Natural Language Grammar Natural • There is a continuum from using natural language to using an formal artificial language: • From “sloppily, even wrongly, used natural language grammar” • to “good quality simple, plain natural language” through (and across the boundary) • to “additional artificial grammar having to be learned and remembered” • to a “fully formal language that looks as much like natural language as possible” (but is deceiving like COBOL was) • to “formal logic programming languages” (like Prolog and Datalog) • The transition from stage 2 to stage 3 is a clearly identifiable boundary that, when crossed, moves from pure natural language to some form of artificial language. • To avoid crossing this boundary means: • not changing the natural language syntax of sentences in any way that requires business users to learn new syntax, or • not introducing different interpretations of syntax from what they already know, or could know, from natural language grammar. Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

23. 3.1 Keeping Natural Language Grammar Natural • If business people have to learn artificial grammar / syntax / notation, • there is a shift of responsibility – and effort – for unambiguous communication. • Rather than business people working with good semantic authoring tools in their own natural language, they have to speak the language of IT professionals. • The more that happens, the greater the risk to the clarity of the documents that people in the business use. Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

24. 3.2 “Plain Language” as Basis for Least Ambiguous Subset of Natural Language • Natural language grammar can be supplemented with good practices for which subsets of natural language grammar structures and patterns are least ambiguous. • There is a large international “Plain Language” community that is rich with good practice materials, training, tools and practical experience that support writing using plain, unambiguous language. • The “Plain English” (http://www.plainlanguage.gov/whatisPL/) requirement of the US Government is a good example of this. • The audience of the Plain Language community is business document authors. • This is in sharp contrast to an audience of logicians and IT professionals for artificial extensions to natural language. • The Plain Language community is both a good starting point for, and context of use of, the work envisioned in this paper. • http://www.plainlanguagenetwork.org/ • http://centerforplainlanguage.org/ • http://plain2015.ie/ • http://www.intelligentcontentconference.com/ Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

25. 3.3 Using Interactive Authoring Software Tools to Remove Ambiguity • Rather than introducing artificial extensions to natural language – • it is much better to use authoring software tools to ask authors for disambiguation input where their use of natural grammar structures require it • Clearly, the best of linguistic analysis know-how is needed to: • optimize resolving indirect references via pronouns, etc.; • for determining context for disambiguating parts of speech words / phrases; and • similar sources of ambiguity. • The document author is always the final authority for intended meaning, when linguistic analysis can’t do the job correctly alone or with enough accuracy. • An example of a sentence where a software tool should ask for clarification is London Underground’s rule: • “Dogs must be carried on escalators”. • This could be interpreted either as: • “A person who is accompanied by a dog must carry the dog when riding an escalator”, or as • “A person may ride an escalator only if the person is carrying a dog” • Compare this with • “A hard hat must be worn when visiting a contruction site”. Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

26. 4. Unambiguous Words/Phrases • Ambiguous words and phrases are one of the two major sources of ambiguity in business documentation. • Removing ambiguity from part-of-speech words and phrases is the focus of the discipline of terminology science. • Terminology science work is standardized in the ISO TC 37 terminology standards with ISO 704:2000 and ISO 1087-1 being the core terminology science standards. • SBVR builds on the foundation of these standards and adds: • Semantic features to terminological dictionaries so that the definitions of concepts can be grounded in formal logic. • The ability to define the skeleton of a sentence clause (SBVR verb concept); i.e. sentence clauses without their quantifications – typically “subjectverbobject [prepositionobject]”. These skeleton clauses are known as “verb concept wordings” in SBVR. In formal logic they are propositions with at least one variable (subject or object) unquantified. Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

27. SBVR Terminology Dictionary: Structured English Example car movement Definition planned movement of somerental car car movement specifies car group car movement is from sending branch car movement is to receiving branch car movement is contracted Definition: Thecar movementis a contract withsomerenter car transfer Definition:car movement that is not contracted Description A transfer is a logistical movement of a car by a EU-Rent driver rental Definition:car movement that is contracted optional extra Definition: Item that may be added to a rental at extra charge if the renter so chooses Example: One-way rental, fuel pre-payment, additional insurances, fittings (child seats, satellite navigation system, ski rack) Source:CRISG[‘optional extra’] Rental includes optional extra scheduled pick-up date/time Concept Type:role Definition:date/timewhentherented carofarentalis scheduled to be collected from EU-Rent rentalrequestscar model Synonymous Form:car modelis requested forrental Necessity:Eachrentalrequestsat most onecar model. There is no normative or mandatory SBVR notation Noun Concept Entry Verb Concept Entry Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

28. What SBVR Adds to ISO 704 & 1087-1 • SBVR Is a Terminological Dictionary – Plus … • Context for sharing meanings and designations • Unambiguous understanding of definitions • Support for repeating patterns in sentence clauses • Unambiguous understanding of sentences, especially policies and rules Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

29. 4.2 Importance of Defining Adjectives / Adjectival Phrases • Characteristics play a very important role in both ISO TC 37 and SBVR in removing ambiguity. characteristic(as adopted by SBVR from ISO 1087-1 & 704) abstraction of a property of an object [thing] or of a set of objects • Characteristics serves as qualifiers: • (concept whose designation is a) “word group that limits or modifies the meaning of another (concept designated by a) word (as a noun) or word group (as a noun phrase)”[qualifier – Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary b.]; e.g.: • “being red” • “having length” • “made of wood” • “is female” • “maintains cars” • Characteristics are the meaning of adjectives; i.e. adjective concepts • Characteristics narrow the meaning of more general (superordinate) concepts • Designations of characteristics play the same role in grammar as adjectives • Characteristics are also powerful as they define conditions which can be used in governance documentation. • The adjectives and adjectival phrases can serve as condition names for the (usually) longer definitions of the characteristic. Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

30. Simple example: Noun Concepts The concept is defined by “everyday natural language meaning of the term” Declared like this if you want to use it formally in definitions. (Methodology-specific, based on ‘designationis implicitly understood’) contract General Concept: implicitly-understood concept credit card General Concept: implicitly-understood concept person General Concept: implicitly-understood concept car movement Definition: planned movement of somerental carofa specifiedcar groupfromasending branchtoareceiving branch rental Definition:car movementthatis a contract with some renter Definition:car movementthatisacontract with somerenter renter Definition:personwhois responsible for some rental Definition:personwhois responsible for somerental with designation of Characteristic with definition of Characteristic Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

31. More general concept Delimiting characteristic Multiple characteristics Characteristics accepts rental bookings stores cars maintains cars Intensional definitions branch Definition:rental organization unitthataccepts rentalbookingsandstores carsand doesnot maintain cars phone booking centre Definition:rental organization unitthataccepts rental bookingsand does notstore carsand does notmaintain cars service depot Definition:rental organization unitthat does notaccept rental bookingsandstores carsandmaintains cars Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

32. Fully Explicit Definition of a Concept • Provided by a Set of Essential Characteristics for a concept is: • the set of necessary and sufficient characteristics that determines the things that are in the extension of, are instances of, the concept • is the combination of: • the delimiting characteristics in the intensional definition of the concept, • all the delimiting characteristics of each of the more general concepts to the top of the inheritance tree, and • a characteristic for the ‘more general concept’ if it is not ‘thing’ Semantically equivalent to OWL necessary and sufficient conditions • Adopted Concept • Delimiting Characteristic 1 • Delimiting Characteristic 2 • More Specific Concept A • Delimiting Characteristic 3 • More Specific Concept B • Delimiting Characteristic 4 • Delimiting Characteristic 5 • Delimiting Characteristic 6 • More Specific Concept C • Delimiting Characteristic 7 Set of Essential Characteristics For More Specific Concept A Set of Essential Characteristics For More Specific Concept C Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

33. Intension & Semantic Equivalence • Sets of essential characteristics are key to removing ambiguity: • not from the connection between expressions (signs, text) and concepts they designate, • but from the meaning of each concept. • Two concepts are same or different based on whether or not they: • do or do not have semantically equivalent sets of essential characteristics • Concepts don’t change: • Connection between an expression and the concept it designates can change over time (usually gradually) Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

34. Characteristic that Makes Up a Concept= Definitional Business Rule • Characteristic, itself maintains cars • Characteristic incorporated into Concept via Intensional Definition: service depot Definition: rental organization unitthatmaintains cars • As Necessity: service depot General Concept: rental organization unit Necessity:Eachservice depotmaintains cars • As Definitional Rule: service depot General Concept: rental organization unit It is necessary that eachservice depotmaintains cars Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

35. Multidimensional Classification (Categorization Schemes) Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

36. Roles and Facets (perspectives) treated Explicitly and Formally • Fundamental: • car (adopted) • Category of some more general concept: • rental caris a category ofcar, with delimiting characteristics (unary verb concepts): • is owned (by a EU-Rent local area) • is rented (is used for rental by EU-Rent) • Role in verb concept: • rental carhas rolesrented car and replacement carin ‘rented car is replaced by replacement car during rental’ • Facet (aspect): • customer[Car Rentals]: customer who rents cars • customer[Vehicle Sales]: customer who buys a rental car at the end of its rental life Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

37. Noun Concepts Characteristics (Adjective Concepts) Define Noun Concepts Using Characteristics Define Characteristics Compositional Structure of Definitions & Rules Business Rules Mantra -- SBVR Version: “Rules are built on Verb Concepts.Noun Concepts play roles in Verb Concepts. Noun Concepts are represented by Terms.” … to describe businesses, not the IT systems that serve them … in language understandable by business people Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

38. What SBVR Adds to ISO 704 & 1087-1 • SBVR Is a Terminological Dictionary – Plus … • Context for sharing meanings and designations • Unambiguous understanding of definitions • Support for repeating patterns in sentence clauses • Unambiguous understanding of sentences, especially policies and rules Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

39. 4.1 Importance of Defining Verbs / Verb Phrases and Prepositions • An important application of natural language is in formulating policies, rules and advice to guide the behaviour of organizations and the people in them. • Verbs are the key, but they are often the poor relations in terminology. • Governance documents all too often reveal definitions – almost all of nouns – and rules, with nothing connecting them but the assumption that use of the nouns around the verbs in the rules will be commonly understood. • Verbs provide the infrastructure - they connect the nouns with the rules. • Nouns have subject and object semantic roles with respect to verbs in sentence clauses. • Nouns in these semantic roles denote the roles played in the real world behaviour, represented by the verb, by the real world things in the extensions of the concepts represented by the nouns. Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

40. Simple example: Verb Concepts (Meaning of sentence clause without some of its quantifications) credit card is valid Definition: thecredit cardis current andis accepted by EU-Rent renter Concept Type: role Definition: personwho is responsible for somerental renteris responsible forrental Synonymous form: rentalis responsibility of renter personholdscredit card Definition: thecredit cardis validandis in the name of therenter credit cardguarantees rental Simple inverse forms (e.g. “credit card is held by person”) are implied – no need for explicit synonymous form Sometimes the verb concept statement by itself is adequate as a definition Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents 40

41. 4.1 Importance of Defining Verbs / Verb Phrases and Prepositions • Structuring verbs into skeleton clauses (sentence clauses without some of their quantifications; SBVR verb concept wordings) allows software tools to report on coherence and completeness of bodies of guidance – • identifying rules that use undefined verb concepts and verb concept wordings that use undefined nouns. • It also enables checking consistency of use of verb concepts across guidance propositions. • Prepositions also have objects and are also part of skeleton clauses (verb concept wordings). • There are a limited number of prepositions (only around 100 in English) but many prepositions have several meanings. • A single vocabulary for prepositions could be adopted into all terminological dictionaries for a given natural language. Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

42. ISO 1087-1 Concept Relations enriched withDefinitions, Concept Roles, & Generic Relations (for formal logic interpretation) • Verb concepts (Meaning of a sentence clause without some of its quantifications) • Unary (characteristic): rental is open • 1 placeholder, filled by ‘rental’ • Binary: rental car is assigned to rental • two placeholders, filled by ‘rental car’ and ‘rental’ • N-ary: replacement car replaces rented carduring rental • three placeholders representing roles, filled by ‘rental car’, ‘rental car’and ‘rental’ • Can objectify a verb concept and use it as a noun concept: • ‘replacement car replaces rented car during rental’can be objectified as ‘car exchange’ plus: • car exchangeprovidesreplacement car • car exchangereplacesrental car • car exchangeoccurs duringrental Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

43. Verb Concepts Build Verb Concepts With Noun Concepts Noun Concepts Characteristics (Adjective Concepts) Define Noun Concepts Using Characteristics Define Characteristics Compositional Structure of Definitions & Rules Business Rules Mantra -- SBVR Version: “Rules are built on Verb Concepts.Noun Concepts play roles in Verb Concepts. Noun Concepts are represented by Terms.” … to describe businesses, not the IT systems that serve them … in language understandable by business people Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

44. 4.1 Importance of Defining Verbs / Verb Phrases and Prepositions • Another aspect of formalizing use of verbs is managing different meanings of a verb phrase in different contexts. • For example, the rental car company of the example above sells its cars at the end of their useful rental life. ‘Car is handed over to customer’ means: • in a rental context: ‘the car is given to the customer for use for an agreed time and return to an agreed drop-off location’; • in a sales context: ‘ownership of the car is transferred to the customer’. • This could be handled by defining narrower categories of the concepts represented by the nouns: • ‘the rental car is handed over to the rental customer’ and • ‘the sold car is handed over to the purchasing customer’. But the people in the business do not talk or write this way and should not be forced to change their vocabulary. They know what they mean within their context. Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

45. 4.1 Importance of Defining Verbs / Verb Phrases and Prepositions • Verbs are modified - with ‘must’, ‘should’, ‘may’ and their negations – to create rules and advice. • For example, a car rental business’s terminology might include the SBVR verb concept ‘credit card guarantees open rental’ (where an open rental is one for which the customer has possession of the car). • A ‘must’ modifier and quantifications added to a single verb concept would create a behavioral rule: • ‘a credit card must guarantee each open rental’. • This is too general. Which credit card has to guarantee which open rental? Other clauses can qualify the nouns to develop the practicable rule the business needs: • ‘An open rental must be guaranteed by a credit card that is in the name of the customer who is responsible for the rental.’ Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

46. 5. Unambiguous Definitions & Sentences • The key overall capability that SBVR adds to ISO 704 and 1087-1 is the ability to write sentences in business documents and definitions in terminological dictionaries that are unambiguous both: • to business people, and • in formal logic. • SBVR Clause 21 standardizes Semantic Formulations -- a very abstract syntax for specifying the logic structure of the meaning of sentences and definitions • semantically equivalent to the natural language sentence or definition. • SBVR Semantic Formulations were designed to be easily mapable to natural language grammar structures. Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

47. 5. Unambiguous Definitions & Sentences • There are a number of cross-language natural language grammar metamodel standards or de-facto standards that could be mapped to the SBVR Semantic Formulation metamodel, such as: • ISO TC 37/SC 4 Linguistic Annotation standards • Penn TreeBank and PropBank • NOOJ Text Annotation Structure (TAS) • Software tools that support these natural language metamodels are increasingly being made available as low-cost Cloud Services. • Serializations of these models for data interchange are usually specific to a given linguistic analysis tool, but that is a concern for implementers – not of the standard proposed here. Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

48. 5. Unambiguous Definitions & Sentences • The SBVR approach to writing unambiguous natural language sentences and definitions includes these components, in addition to SBVR terminological dictionary and rulebook tools: • A standard that specifies a cross-language approach to documenting a subset of natural language grammar. • A “Simplified Natural Language” version for the natural language(s) to be used in business documents, preferably US English as the first one. These simplified natural languages should be of the kind, and documented according to the approach, specified in above standard. • An authoring software tool that supports SBVR Semantic Formulations • Adoption and/or creation of terminological dictionaries whose concepts cover the subject content of the documents to be authored. Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

49. 5. Unambiguous Definitions & Sentences • A standard that specifies a cross-language approach to documenting a subset of natural language grammar should: • Select a cross-language linguistic annotation metamodel, • Identify the subset of its cross-language grammar structures that can mapped to SBVR semantic formulations • in a way that leaves the fewest opportunities for ambiguity. • Provide a mapping of the chosen natural language grammar structures to SBVR semantic formulation constructs. • Add no new syntax rules that would need to be learned by business people. Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents

50. 5. Unambiguous Definitions & Sentences • An authoring software tool that: • Takes text from business documents, preferably as it is being written, • Uses the proposed standard and the semantic/logical layer of linguistic analysis to: • Identify ambiguous grammar situations, • Ask the author for clarification from suggested options, • Record all author decisions and/or computer decisions. • Uses the above proposed standard to generate SBVR semantic formulations from the definitions and sentences. Using Natural Language Grammar & SBVR to Author Unambiguous Business Governance Documents