A Controlled Natural Language Layer for the Semantic Web

In this paper, I will show how a controlled natural language can be used to describe knowledge for the Semantic Web and discuss the formal properties of this language. At the first glance, the proposed controlled natural language looks like full English and can therefore be easily written and understood by non-specialists. However, its built-in grammatical and lexical restrictions, which are enforced by an intelligent authoring tool, guarantee that the language can be directly translated into description logic programs, i.e. the intersection of an expressive description logic with function-free logic programs. The controlled natural language can be used to make assertional and terminological statements as well as to specify rules for reasoning with the resulting assertional and terminological knowledge.