Lead


Lay summary
Attempto Controlled English (ACE) is a language specifically designed to write specifications. ACE is a controlled natural language, i.e. a subset of English with a domain specific vocabulary, a restricted grammar, and a small set of construction and interpretation principles. This means that all sentences of ACE are correct English, but that not all English sentences are allowed in ACE. The restriction of full natural language to a controlled subset is essential for ACE to be suitable for specification purposes. The main goals of this restriction are:

• To support the writing of precise specifications
• To reduce ambiguity and vagueness inherent in full natural language
• Tto encourage domain specialists to deliberately choose a clear and unambiguous writing style so that readers of a specification understand it in the same way as the writer
• To make specifications computer processable
• To render specifications unambiguously translatable into formal specification languages, particularly into logic languages
• To make specifications executable

In brief, ACE allows domain specialists to express specifications in familiar natural language and combine this with the rigor of formal specification languages.