Formal Language for Business Communication: Sketch of a

Formal Language for Business Communication: Sketch of a Basic TheoryAuthor(s): Steven O. KimbroughReviewed work(s):Source: International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Vol. 3, No. 2, Formal Aspects ofDigital Commerce (Winter, 1998/1999), pp. 23-44Published by: M.E. Sharpe, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27750883 .

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Formal Language for Business Communication: Sketch of a Basic Theory

Steven O. Kitnbrough

ABSTRACT: Progress in research on developing a general-purpose formal language for business communications (FLBC) has been substantial. Key distinctions have been made, important concepts identified, and impressive prototypes implemented. The purpose of this paper is to present succinctly the basic elements of a complete (logical) theory for an FLBC. These elements include speech act theory, event semantics, extensive use of thematic roles; and representation in first-order logic. The theory is expected to lead to

superior messaging in electronic commerce.

KEY WORDS AND PHRASES: Computer languages, electronic data interchange (EDI), electronic commerce, event semantics.

For some time, authors have been investigating the possibility of developing a general-purpose formal language for business communications?or FLBC (for a few examples, see [3, 5,15,16,17, 23, 24, 26, 25, 27]; for an overview, see [19] and the references therein). The impetus for this research is a shared

analysis to the effect that existing electronic data interchange (EDI) standards leave much to be desired in terms of flexibility, expressiveness, clarity, and

much else. (In fact, simply discerning and articulating the ways in which

present-day standards are lacking has been a major and important focus of research.) Progress to date has been substantial and continues to be exciting and very promising. Key distinctions have been made, important concepts identified, and impressive prototypes implemented. These are all pieces in the puzzle of how to design and effect a general-purpose, very powerful, and useful formal language for business communication. Or, to switch the

metaphor, what we have is many valuable trees. The aim here is to present a

rough map of the forest. The presentation in this paper is a sketch, beginning with a listing of a few of the main design criteria and theoretical elements. These principles are then illustrated with a small example. In the end, the reader should have a convincing picture of the overall project and will be able to extend and generalize the discussion presented here.

The Theory in a Nutshell

Any scheme, or language, for machine-to-machine communication for busi ness purposes (or indeed for any purpose at all) has to be formal, that is, interpretable from structure alone, without regard to the meanings humans have or intend for the various symbols employed. This much is uncontroversial and unexceptionable. Interesting questions arise when we

try to specify a general approach to (i.e., an FLBC for) machine-to-machine communications for business purposes. The reasonable hope is that an ad

International Journal of Electronic Commerce / Winter 1998-99, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 23-44.

Copyright ? 1999 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved. 1086-4415/1999 $9.50 + 0.00.



24 STEVEN O. KIMBROUGH

equate FLBC can be specified by describing a general grammar (or rules of

expression formation) along with particular vocabularies, or lexicons, to be used in the various special contexts. But what should this language look like? What should it be able to say and do? It is not enough to say that it should (or should not) be a dialect of first-order logic, for this dodges the substantive questions of what expressive capabilities should be represented and how they should work. First-order logic (FOL), or any other representa tion form, is just that: a form or medium for embodying a substantive?

empirically conditioned and possibly false?theory of what needs to be said and how to say it.

The text that follows outlines the substantive elements of the basic theory. First, two assumptions.

Design Criterion 1 (Public-Only Lexicons)

Using publicly available lexicons (with a public grammar)?that is, without recourse to direct conversation?would-be business partners should be able to commence a meaningful and effective exchange of messages.

A properly designed FLBC should permit business messaging to begin and to proceed without the business partners having to come to a separate and specific agreement governing the content, structure, and proper inter

pretation of the messages to be exchanged. It is widely agreed that the pub lic-only lexicons assumption is a highly desirable design goal for electronic

commerce, but that it is very far from being met with existing EDI systems, resulting in a significant cost burden impeding electronic commerce.1

Design Criterion 2 (FOL Representation) First-order logic (FOL) should be used, insofar as possible, as the basis for

expressions in any FLBC. The FOL representation criterion/assumption does not require that actual

FLBC messages as used in practice be well-formed formulas in FOL. Instead, the assumption only requires that there be a theory for how to interpret (and translate) FLBC expressions into FOL. The discussion that follows sticks to conventional FOL syntax. Whether this is wise strategy for processing mes

sages in practice is not germane here. The reason for making the FOL repre sentation assumption is pragmatic, albeit intellectual. FOL offers a

theoretically sound and well-understood formalism for which there is good computational support (viz., Prolog). Further, discovering whether, in fact, the assumption can be maintained (or over what range of applications it can be maintained) is a theoretically interesting endeavor.

With these assumptions in mind, it is now possible to give a nutshell de

scription of substantive elements of the basic FLBC theory.

1. Speech act theory. The hypothesis is that every well-formed message, or utterance li, conforms to the F(P) framework from speech act

theory (cf. [33]). This can be summarized by saying, "Any utterance, li, may be reexpressed in the form F(P)/' or in shorthand li -? F(P).



INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ELECTRONIC COMMERCE 25

Here, F is an illocutionary force indicator, such as "asserts," "prom ises," "requests," and so on. P is a true-or-false proposition, called

the propositional content of an expression having the F(P) form. It is

worth noting that speech act theory has been widely accepted in the

information systems and artificial intelligence communities as an

essential part of the theory of message structure and content (see,

e.g., [1,29]; see [19] for a review and a longer list of citations).

2. P-> S, S -> (NP VP). The P in the F(P) framework stands for a

proposition, viz., the propositional content of the overall utterance.

In modeling this, we work, not with propositions, but with sen

tences that, it is hoped, accurately refer to the intended propositions. Again, the -? symbol in this context indicates a permitted rewriting: Instead of talking about propositions, we may talk about sentences.

Further, following standard practice (cf., [1, 4,10]), a sentence may be rewritten as a noun phrase, NP, followed by a verb phrase, VP.

3. Event semantics. Continuing to follow standard practice, it is our

intention to provide rewrite rules for NP and VP, and eventually to

translate the results into first-order logic. How to translate NPs into FOL is comparatively uncontroversial. This is not so for VPs.

Substantively for the theory of FLBC, event semantics is used as a

perspective for analysis of VPs [12, 22, 28]. Under this analysis, which will be illustrated below, verbs and verb modifiers make essential reference to underlying events and states.

4. Thematic roles (or relations or cases). Arguably, in the sentence "Brutus stabbed Caesar," there is an underlying verb, "stab," that connects two entities, Brutus and Caesar, playing distinct thematic roles in

what is said. Brutus is the agent of the stabbing event, and Caesar is the theme. Analyzing VPs in terms of verbs and thematic roles is now widely accepted [1,10, 22, 28]. Different authors have different lists of the roles, but the representational power and economy of the

general approach is not much in doubt. And it has much value as

part of the FLBC program.

5. FOL Representation. The claim here is that all the above?the F(P) framework with event semantics and thematic roles?can be ad

equately represented in first-order logic, utilizing the techniques developed by Kimbrough [e.g., in 11,12]. This is, however, a contro versial position. See, for example, Jackendoff's disparaging of FOL for such purposes [10]. But the proof is in the pudding, and we shall

simply have to see if, and to what extent, FOL representations can be made to work for purposes of electronic commerce.

The discussion in this article is based on the belief (or at least the hypoth esis) that:

1. All five of these elements are needed in the apparatus for a theory of FLBC.




2. With these elements it is possible to demonstrate an FLBC of impres sive power and range of application.

3. Additional elements can be added as extensions, without conflict, to

this basis for FLBC. (Time, obligation, and defeasibility will be discussed briefly below.)

Now, instead of proving these elements as a basis for FLBC (something that in any event cannot be done), let us see them participate in an extended

example.

The GuestCheck Application

Consider how one might design a simple and elementary but general purpose language for ordering meals. Such a language?call it GuestCheck? could be used to conduct dialogues between a consumer and a supplier of

meals. The basic scenario is as follows. The consumer's machine issues a

message in GuestCheck to a supplier. The supplier's machine handles the

message, perhaps by replying with useful information, perhaps by initiating the food preparation and billing process. User (human) interfaces are avail able on both the consumer side and the supplier side, but they may or may not be called into action, since both message-processing systems (one on the consumer side, the other on the supplier side) may also interact with appli cation interfaces. The message-processing systems (again, on both the con sumer side and the supplier side) are there to facilitate communication and to provide services that allow reduction of labor content in the transac tions. (See [18] and references therein for further discussion of this archi

tecture.)

Now, consider the following scenario. A consumer is traveling and finds herself in an unfamiliar city and hotel. After checking into the hotel, she sets

up her computer and establishes a network connection with the hotel server. When it is time for lunch, the consumer is busy and does not wish to be bothered with ordering food from the hotel. Instead, she launches her food

ordering application (not the hotel's; this is merely to reaffirm Design Crite rion 1). She chooses one of several standard lunches that she enjoys, makes some minor modifications, and indicates when she wants to receive the food. She then clicks a button to transmit the order and returns to her business activities. Meanwhile, her application establishes communication with the hotel's kitchen.

A series of increasingly complex examples will show how this might be done in a general fashion. First, however, some particulars. Let us suppose that the hotel's food service specializes in Chinese food and in Philadelphia style short orders. Table 1 is the soup portion of the hotel's Chinese menu. Table 2 has the Chinese appetizers, and Table 3, the Philadelphia-style steak sandwiches. (All three tables are derived from real restaurants, as indicated.)

Using these menu fragments for examples, we shall now examine sev eral approaches to designing the underlying messaging system to support the application described above.




No. Item Pt. Qt.

51 Wonton soup 1.75 3.25

52 Egg drop soup 1.45 2.75

53 Wonton egg drop soup 1.95 3.50

54 Hot & sour soup (spicy) 1.75 3.25

55 Vegetable soup 1.45 2.75

S? Vegetable tofu soup 1.75 3.25 57 Clam soup (spicy) 4.50

58 Sliced pork with tofu soup 4.50

59 Sliced pork with watercress soup 4.50

510 Chicken with corn soup 4.50

511 Crabmeat with corn soup 5.25

512 Seafood with tofu soup 5.25

513 Youngchowwonton soup 4.50

Table 1 Beijing Restaurant: Menu Fragment 1: Soups (3714 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, May 1997).

No. I tern Price

AI Pork egg roll 1.10

A2 Shrimp egg roll 1.45 A3 Vegetarian egg roll 1.10

A4 Steamed or pan-fried chicken dumplings (6) 3.75

A5 Steamed or pan-fried pork dumplings (6) 3.50

A6 B-B-Q spare ribs

(Sm.6) 5.85

(Lg. 10) 8.95 A7 Chinese pizza (scallion sesame pancake) 2.25

A8 Fried tofu with garlic sauce (vegetarian) 3.50

A9 Fried wonton (8) 3.50

A10 Honey roasted pork 5.25

All Chinese pickle salad (vegetarian) 2.25

A12 Garden salad (lettuce, broccoli, pepper, tomato) 3.75

A13 Chinese chicken salad with sesame sauce and brown rice 4.75

A14 Chinese shrimp salad with sesame sauce and brown rice 5.25

A15 Cold sesame noodles (vegetarian) 3.50

Table 2. Beijing Restaurant: Menu Fragment 2: Appetizers (3714 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, May 1997).

GuestCheck-0

Suppose our hungry traveler wants two soups, an appetizer, and one steak sandwich from the hotel food service. GuestCheck-O, a primitive but reliable

system, is at hand. The traveler launches her application (GuestCheck-O), views a list of generic food items, clicks on "soup" twice and "appetizer" and "steak" once each. The program sends the following message to the hotel's food-service operation: soup, soup, appetizer, steak. The food-service opera



28 STEVEN O. K1MBROUGH

Item Price

Plain steak

Cheese steak

Pizza steak

Pepper steak

Mushroom steak

Steak hoagie Cheese steak hoagie

4.35

4.60

4.75

4.50

4.75

4.60

4.75

Table 3. Merion Pizza: Menu Fragment 1: Steaks (298 Levering Mill

Road, Bala Cynwyd, PA, May 1997).

tion then picks two soups (say a quart of crabmeat with corn soup and a

quart of seafood with tofu soup), an appetizer (say a pork egg roll), and a

steak sandwich (say a cheese steak hoagie), prepares them, and has them delivered to our traveler's hotel room.

GuestCheck-0 is certainly a straw man, but one worth considering seri

ously, if only briefly. Note, first, that the customer did not see the hotel's food service menu. She selected from a list of food items that she carried on her own computer. The list is publicly available, and the hotel food service can

expect other travelers to draw from it in ordering. This, perhaps, is odd,

given that one of the joys of traveling is sampling the variety of local cuisine. But it is part of the point at hand. GuestCheck-0 works with a publicly speci fied grammar and lexicon. The messaging scheme is public (and standard). The lexicon includes these terms: soup, appetizer, and steak. The grammar accepts any comma-separated sequence of terms from the lexicon, with re

peated entries indicating the number of items of that kind being ordered.

Note, second, that the hotel's food-service operation had to translate the GuestCheck-0 message into its local idiom, viz., into the specific menu items it offers.

The defects of GuestCheck-0 are obvious: Its lexicon is hopelessly limited and lacking in specificity (soup, but what kind of soup?), and its grammar is

concomitantly primitive, deb?itatingly so. In the next example these prob lems will be fixed, but the two features just noted?the publicness of the

messaging scheme and the requirement to translate messages into the local idiom (and back)?will remain throughout.

GuestCheck-1

Now consider GuestCheck-1, a more sophisticated entry in the GuestCheck

applications series. The essential convention is that the customer sends a

message listing the items and quantities being ordered, and the restaurant

produces these items and has them delivered, all for the standard, posted price. The items are represented as nouns, qualified, that is, as noun phrases (NPs). The example order is much as before: one pint wonton soup, one

quart spicy clam soup, one pork egg roll, and one cheese steak hoagie. Think of the order as being given in tabular form, as in Table 4. Expressed in el

ementary logic it might be:




Quantity Unit Item description

pint

quart item

item

Wonton soup

Spicy clam soup

Pork egg roll

Cheese steak hoagie

Table 4. The Basic Order in GuestCheck-1.

wontonsoup(dnl) A unit(dn\, pint) A

quantity(dnl, I) A spicy-clam-soup(dnl) A

unit(dn2, quart) A quantity(dn\, 1) A

cheese-steak-hoagie(dn3) A unit(dn3f item) A

quantity{dnZ, 1) A pork-egg-roll(dn4) A unit(dn4, item) A quantity(dn4, X) (1)

Note: dnX = dummy name X. For the sake of simplicity, this exposition

uses dummy names instead of logical variables. The idea is that the message

originator can create at will any number of unique names and use them in

expressions. Also, once a dummy name is used in a given message, any sub

sequent use of it refers to the original use. Thus, for example, an acknowl

edgment message might use dummy names from the message acknowledged in order to say something about what was discussed in that original mes

sage. This is a device for maintaining correct application of the predicates unit and quantity?serving here much as thematic roles (but as part of a ker

nel vocabulary). Compared to GuestCheck-O, GuestCheck-1 embodies a more satisfactory,

more expressive messaging scheme. It can discriminate among different units

(e.g., pint or quart) for items ordered, and items can be identified more specifi

cally. In fact, this example is too specific in its use of item descriptions, for it assumes that the GuestCheck program has in effect stored every menu item on the hotel's list and that the customer has picked just these items from a

very long universal menu stored in her computer. This is simply unrealistic.

GuestCheck-1 would have to violate the goal of a public lexicon, Design Cri terion 1. Of course, there may be circumstances in which this is desirable.

Perhaps our traveler goes to only three hotels worldwide. Why not simply have a menu for each hotel? If there are really only three, then probably it

would be fine not to have a public lexicon, but there are many cases when this simply will not do. Hundreds of travelers go to dozens of places. Thou sands of companies do business electronically with dozens of other compa nies. At some point fairly early in the complexity scale, idiosyncratic messaging solutions, including specialized vocabularies, simply do not make sense. The focus here is on these more complex cases.

Note that GuestCheck-1 bears a deep resemblance to existing EDI stan dards. In both cases a fair amount of structural (formal) information is speci fied, but field contents (and grammatical structure) are often not determined in a public fashion. This is the case for Item Description in Table 4, and for

many fields as defined by current EDI standards. The strategy evident in



30 STEVEN O.KIMBROUGH

GuestCheck-1 (and in the EDI standards) requires either that an unrealisti

cally large public lexicon be established (say with all the menu items for all

participating food vendors) or that the field contents be negotiated among trading partners (violating Design Criterion 1 and incurring substantial costs). It is possible to do better.

GuestCheck-1.5

GuestCheck-1.5 improves on GuestCheck-1 by analyzing the item descrip tions. These are, without exception, NPs, and in general the logical analysis of NPs is unproblematic. So, in the interest of conserving space, the discus sion will move on to VPs, which are much more interesting, and which illus trate the NP lessons.

Common nouns (e.g., soup, sandwich) are uncontroversially represented as predicates in FOL. Thus, soup(x) for "x is a soup"; sandwich(x) for "x is a sandwich." Proper nouns, however, are referring expressions and, as such, are represented in FOL as terms. Adjectives are somewhat more complicated. For example, a yellow kitchen is a kitchen that is yellow, but a former dancer is not a dancer who is former. Instead, someone who is a former dancer is someone who formerly was a dancer. (This is recognized in the literature with the distinction between intersective and attributive adjectives, cf. [22].) A third type appears in the menu examples. In "wonton soup" it would seem that wonton should not be interpreted as an adjective in either the intersective or the attributive sense. Wonton soup is not wonton and soup. Nor is it a

wontonly soup. Instead, it is soup with wontons in it; wontons are part of the

soup. Similarly, a cheese steak with hot peppers is a cheese steak with hot

peppers on it, and so on, quite generally. The solution is to introduce a predi cate, suprapartix, y) for y is a part of x. Using this approach, here are some of the examples analyzed into FOL.

1. A pint of wonton soup:

soup(dnl) A unit(dnl, pint) A quantityidn\, \) A wonton(dnl) A

suprapartidnl, dnl) (2)

2. A quart of spicy clam soup:

soup(dn3) A unit(dn3, quart) A quantity(dn3,1) A spicy(dn3) A clamidnA) A suprapart(dn3, dnl) (3)

(Note: Spicy soup is soup that is spicy, and clam soup is soup with clams in it.)

3. One cheese steak:

sandwich(dn5) A unit(dn5, item) A quantity(dn5, V A beef-steak(dn6) A suprapart(dn5, dn6) A cheese(dn7) A

suprapart(dn5, dnl) (4)




Some comments. (1) Every predicate in the items above is naturally part of a universal, public lexicon for ordering food. Similarly for the terms pint, quart, and item. (2) There is nothing in the logical representation of a cheese steak here to differentiate it from, say, a cheeseburger. For many purposes it

will not be necessary to represent the distinction. When it is, the solution is

simply a matter of adding information conjunctively. For example, if dn5 is a

sandwich as above, it would probably be sufficient to add A style(dn5, Phila

delphia) for "and dn5 is a sandwich in the Philadelphia style." Note, too, that the predicate style is naturally part of a public lexicon.

GuestCheck-2: VPs

So far, the GuestCheck applications have been sending messages only one

way, from the customer to the food service, and grammatically the messages have been of one explicit type, NP. Implicitly, however, the messages say: "I, customer so-and-so, request that you prepare and deliver to me X" where X is an NP, a quart of spicy clam soup or whatever. If request-to-deliver is the

only verb we are interested in, then GuestCheck-1.5 might be close to what is needed. But it isn't. Extending the system only slightly, it would be useful to have the capability to ask a question (e.g., "What can you put on a sand

wich?") and to receive an answer (e.g., "We can put peppers, onions, mush

rooms, and cheese on sandwiches."). Among many other things, it would also be desirable for the system to allow acknowledgment of orders (e.g., "We have received your order, and can make and deliver per your request."). The reader can no doubt think of many other examples of distinct verbs that would be useful in such a system. As usual, for the sake of conserving space, the discussion is limited to just a few cases.

Event semantics and thematic roles will be used to represent VPs. (See [22, 28] for a thorough treatment of these ideas. See [12] for a discussion in the context of electronic commerce.) In essence, the idea is that verbs are

interpreted as FOL predicates that apply to events, that verb modifiers are FOL predicates that associate individuals with the events associated with

verbs, and that verb modifiers often fall into general categories?thematic roles.2

To illustrate:

c(ustomer) requests-to-deliver by r(estaurant) one steak sandwich

request-to-deliver(dnl) A agent(dn\, c) A

patient(dn\, r) A theme(dnl, dn5) A beneficiary (dnl, c) A sandwich(dn5) A unit(dn5, item) A quantity(dn5,1) A

bee?teak(dn6) A suprapart(dn5, dn6))) (5)

Interpretation of Expression 5 (refer also to Table 5): dnl is a request-to deliver event. The agent of this event is c, the customer. The event is directed at (has patient) r, the restaurant. The subject matter of this event (the theme) is dn5, which is a sandwich with beefsteak in it. c is requesting that r deliver to c (the beneficiary) one such sandwich.




Role Description

agent Volitional initiator of action

patient Object or individual undergoing action

theme Object or individual moved by action

goal Individual toward which action is directed

source Object or individual from which something is

moved by event, or from which event originates

experiencer Individual experiencing some event

beneficiary Object that benefits from event

location Place at which event is situated

instrument Secondary cause of event; object or individual that

causes some event that in turn causes event to take place

Table 5. Examples of Thematic Roles*

Note that the predicates in Expression 5 naturally fall into three distinct

categories, each plausibly of general (public) interest and utility: (1) food related predicates: sandwich, beefsteak) (2) thematic roles: agent, patient, benefi ciary, theme-, (3) kernel vocabulary: request-to-deliver, unit, quantity, suprapart.

Herein lies one of the main reasons why this approach?event semantics with thematic roles (aka: ES<9 theory; see [22])?is so attractive in this con text.

Here, more briefly, are the other examples.

"We have received your order, and can make and deliver what you ordered."

receiving(dnllO) A bene?ciary(dnHO, r) A theme(dn\\Q, dnl) A

honoring(dnlOl) A agent(dn\Q\, r) A theme(dn\0\, dnl) (6)

"What can you put on a sandwich?"

request-to-describe(dn201) A agent(dn2Q\, c) A

patient(dn201, r) A themeidnlOl, dnlOl) A sandwich(dn203) A suprapart(dn203, dn202) (7)

"We can put peppers, onions, mushrooms, and cheese on sand wiches."

One way of interpreting this is: "It is possible that we put peppers ... on sandwiches." There is a logically simpler and entirely workable alternative: "Peppers are available to be put on sandwiches, onions are available ..."

asserting(dn300) A agent(dn300, r) A patient(dn300, c) A sandwich(dn203) A

theme(dn300,dn203) A suprapart(dn203,dn301) A

onion(dn30l) A available(dn301) A suprapart(dn203, dn302) A




pepper(dn302) A available(dn302) A suprapart(dn203, dn303) A

mushroom(dn303) A available(dn303) A suprapart(dn203, dn3Q4 A

cheese(dn304) A available(dn304) (8)

Comments:

(1) There is as yet no consensus regarding the exact list and definitions of the thematic roles, but neither do there appear to be theoretically significant debates over the list. Table 5, from [22], is representative, and its categoriza tion is used here. Although it would be interesting and useful to have what is not yet available, that is, a framework for thematic roles driven strongly by applications requirements, it is hard to imagine anything really fundamental

turning on the results.

(2) It is instructive to compare the message representations in the list im

mediately above with those for GuestCheck-1, where the pattern of adding information by judicious conjoining of additional predicates was established.

GuestCheck-1 conjoined the unit and quantity predicates to the item descrip tions as a way of efficiently using a general, public, and sparse vocabulary. The same strategy can be followed for NPs (cf. GuestCheck-1.5) in breaking out the item descriptions. GuestCheck-2 adds VP information using essen

tially the same logical apparatus. This is a happy result. With but a minimal addition to the lexicon, and remaining within the confines of FOL, it has

much greater expressive power while maintaining the public-only assump tion for an FLBC.

GuestCheck-3: lllocutionary Forces

The strategy evident in GuestCheck-2, with its associated level of logical detail, is sufficient for many practical purposes. Although this has not been shown, it is sufficient for, and would be an improvement on, the messaging now done with EDI standards. Nonetheless, much logical, or expressive, structure remains unarticulated in GuestCheck-2, and it is worth examining

what might be done to remedy this logical papering over. Some of the verb predicates discussed in GuestCheck-2 are odd and not

to be found in dictionaries (e.g., request-to-deliver and request-to-describe). A

request-to-deliver really involves two verbs, requesting and delivering, but not (as heretofore) in conjunctive fashion. A request-to-deliver is not a request ing and a delivering. It is a requesting that a delivering happen. Hence the functional notion in the speech act framework, F(P). A request-to-deliver is dis tinct from a promise-to-deliver, and both are different from a prediction-of delivery. All three involve a common verb, to deliver, which belongs to the

propositional content, P. Requesting, promising, and predicting are three dis tinct illocutionary forces,3 and they belong to the illocutionary force indicator, F.

How are illocutionary forces to be represented, for they create intentional contexts in which the substitution of identicals or equivalents cannot always be done salva verite? To promise to bring beer to the party is not the same as to promise to bring Fred's favorite drink, even if Fred's favorite drink is beer.




Similarly, to promise that you will come to the party is not the same as to

promise that you will skip Esmeralda's wedding, even if you skip Esmeralda's

wedding if and only if you come to the party The discussion proceeds, as usual, by example.

"Rosie promises to deliver the flowers to Lupe."

The following sentence is a logically more transparent stylistic variant:

"There is a promising (event) in which the speaker is Rosie and the benefactive is Lupe, and in which Rosie keeps this promise if and

only she does something that causes there to be a delivering of the flowers to Lupe."

3e(promising(e,a*) A speaker(e, r, a*) A

addresseeie, I, a*) A

Vzv(A(a*, w) -> (K(e, w) <->

3e'(cause(r, e', w) A delivering(e', w) A

benefactive^', I, w) A ihemeie', the-flowers,w))))) (9)

This yields another stylistic variant, albeit a stilted one:

"There is a promising event in the actual world, a*, in which the

speaker is Rosie and the addressee is Lupe, and for any possible world, w, accessible from the actual world, a*, the promise is kept in that world, K(e, w), if and only if there is a delivering event, e', in that world, Rosie causes that event, the benefactive of the event is Lupe, and the theme of the event is the flowers."

See [11, 12] for discussions of this representation and for discussions of how it uses possible worlds to represent intensional contexts. Note:

1. Two new thematic roles have been introduced, speaker and addressee, for use with illocutionary-force-indicating verbs, such as promising. A case might be made that the standard list, for example, Table 5, can be made to work, but this is unlikely. Even if it can, the addition of just these new roles makes message interpretation easier at little cost in terms of complexity.

2. A simple modification makes it possible to say that Rosie promises to deliver the flowers herself. Conjoin agent(e', r, w). By FedEx?

Conjoin agent(e'', FedEx, w). Adding all sorts of other information is

quite a simple matter. The reader is free to imagine what such information might be and how to add it.

3. The intention in Expression 9 is to represent a speech act (a promise) in FOL. But FOL expressions are true or false, whereas speech acts, being ac

tions, are not. What does this mean? A speech act representation in FOL re

quires the employment of a certain convention. Note that speech acts are most naturally expressed in the first person (e.g., "I promise that..." and




"We assert that. . . "). The same expressions in the third person are natu

rally understood not as speech acts but as true-or-false reports (e.g., "She

promises that..." and "They assert that. . . "). Expression 9 exploits this observation by introducing a convention named in honor of former senator and U.S. presidential candidate Dole, who is given to speaking this way.

Convention 1 (Bob Dole). Speaker s effects an utterance by stating the utterance in the third person with s as the reported speaker (utterer).

For the Bob Dole convention to work, security measures are necessary so that the actual speaker of any third-person utterance can be identified. But this is hardly exotic; it is merely a restatement of the need for authentication,

something required in any case. In the end, the point may be summarized as follows. Under the Bob Dole

convention, you don't say "I promise..." to make a promise. Instead, if you are person P, then you say "P promises ..." This counts as a promise only if the speaker is in fact person P. Authentication and other network access schemes are then necessary so that the addressee can know whether the sender of the message "P promises ..." is in fact P.

4. For many purposes a simpler representation will do, without

possible words (and without intentionality).

"There is a promising in which the agent is Rosie and the benefactive is Lupe, and in which Rosie keeps this promise if she does something that causes there to be a delivering of the flowers to Lupe."

which goes into FOL as

3e(promising(e) A speaker(e, r) A

addressee(e,l) A (K(e) <->

3e'(cause(r, e') A delivering(e')A benefactive(e', I) A theme(e', the-flowers)))) (10)

5. Although it is possible to do so, the-flowers has not been analyzed.

Now, the GuestCheck-2 examples in GuestCheck-3, but without possible worlds and with dummy names.

c(ustomer) requests-to-deliver by r(estaurant) one steak sandwich (cf. Expression 5)

requesting(dnl) A speaker(dn\, c) A

addressee(dn\, r) A theme(dn\, dnl) A

(H(dnl) <-> (delivering(dnl) A cause(rf dnl) A beneficiary (dnl, c) A

theme(dnl, dn5) A sandwich(dnS) A unit(dn5, item) A quantity(dn5,1) A

bee?teak(dn6) A suprapart(dn5, dn6))) (11)




(Note: H(x) for "request x is honored.")

"We have received your order, and can make and deliver what you ordered." (cf. Expression 6)

asserting(dnlOO) A speaker(dnlOO, r) A addressee(dnlOO, c) A theme(dn!00, dnl) A

(T(dnlOO) o (receiving(dnllO) A themeidnllO, dnl) A beneficiary (dnllO, r))) A

(T(dnlQO) <-> (honoring(dnlOl) A causeir, dnlOl) A theme(dnl01, dnl))) (12)

(Note: T(x) for "assertion x is true.")

"What can you put on a sandwich?" (cf. Expression 7)

requesting(dn200) A speaker(dn200, c) A addressee(dn22Q, r) A theme(dn2Q0, dn201) A

(H(dn2m)<-> (describing(dn201)A agent(dn201, r) A addressee(dn201, c) A

theme(dn201, dn202) A sandwich(dn203)A suprapart(dn203, dn202))) (13)

"We can put peppers, onions, mushrooms, and cheese on sand wiches." As before, see Expression 8. One way of interpreting this is: "We assert that it is possible that we put peppers ... on sand

wiches." There is a logically simpler and entirely workable alterna tive: "We assert that peppers are available to be put on sand

wiches, onions are available..."

a$serting(dn30Q) A speaker(dn300, r) A addressee(dn300f c) A

(T(dn300) <-> (sandwich(dn203) A suprapart(dn2034n301) A

onion(dn301) A available(dn301) A suprapart(dn203, dn302) A

pepper(dn302) A available(dn302) A suprapart(dn203/ dn303) A

mushroom(dn303) A available(dn303) A suprapart(dn203, dn304) A

cheese(dn304) A available(dn304))) (14)

It may be useful at this point to recall Design Criterion 1, for public-only lexicons, and to state what those lexicons would be for the full GuestCheck 3 example. As in an earlier version (see above), predicates are needed, and

they fall into three distinct categories: food-related predicates (Table 6), the matic roles (Table 5 plus speaker and addressee), and the kernel vocabulary for the FLBC system (Table 6).

These are the terms that are used here. Certainly the lists would have to be lengthened for any real-world application?especially in the case of food items (Table 6).4




Predicate Interpretation

beefsteak(x)

cheese(x)

mushroomfxl

x is beefsteak

x is cheese

xis mushroom(s) onion (x)

pepper(x)

sandwich(x)

xis onion(s) x is pepper(s) x is a sandwich

Table 6. Short List of Food-Related Predicates.

This concludes the brief sketch of the basic FLBC semantic theory. Of course, much remains to be said and done. Some of that has been achieved, but is

beyond the scope of this introductory paper. What remains here is to com ment on what has been presented.

A Bit of Philosophy

The FLBC theory of messaging for electronic commerce that has been sketched so far is fundamentally quite simple and, we might say, lean [20]. To promise that O, according to this theory, is simply to perform an action (normally, by uttering something in a specified form) that creates a condition such that O

(whatever it is you promised) if and only if you keep your promise. The move generalizes (see, e.g., [11,12] for further details). To request that O is to

perform an action that creates a condition such that O if and only if your request is honored. And so on for the other illocutionary forces. But perhaps the theory is too lean. After all, if you make a promise, you ought to do what

you promise. This, and much else, is not represented in the scheme described here.5 The theory here is intended to capture the core meaning, as distin

guished from the extended meaning, of a message in electronic commerce. The core meaning of a promise is what has been explicated, if only as a sketch. That you ought to keep your promise is part of the extended meaning of

promising and is inferable from the core representation when additional

assumptions are made. Given this lean messaging and semantics, which

capture the core meanings of the basic utterances, it is possible to add rules, or meaning postulates, that can capture extended meanings for the lean utterances (e.g., that if you send a purchase order and it is hon ored, then you are obligated to pay for the goods delivered). These addi tional assumptions, or rules, are often referred to as a wrapper for the basic message [20],

Quite obviously, there is much more to be said in order to substantiate the

picture (indeed, theory) offered here. In particular, the representational ap proach needs to be applied broadly in electronic commerce before users can have strong confidence in it. Work of that kind is ongoing (see, e.g., [7, 8,13, 19, 20,36]). The demonstration here of the GuestCheck example lends some credence to the overall approach. No other approach fully formalizes? semanticizes?even this much. Plausibly, the approach sketched here can be

greatly extended. Instead of further exploration in that direction at this point,



38 STEVEN O. K1MBR0UGH

it is necessary to address two broadly philosophical issues that pertain to the

proposed theory. First, when we say, "To promise is to perform an action that creates a

condition such that..." and so on, the question naturally arises of how such

actions work, or even are possible. What makes the Bob Dole rule work?

Second, this semantic theory of speech acts is greatly at variance with previ ous theories. I wish to clarify the differences, and to argue for this approach.

First things first. How do such actions work? To put it briefly, by conven

tion. Every utterance (every sending of a message) is an action of some sort.

By convention, certain kinds of utterances count as promises, that is, count as creating conditions under which what was promised is true if and only if the promise is kept. This is an entirely straightforward, transparent,

unmysterious view. Certainly it is no more problematic than the common

view that individual words get their meanings by convention. Why does rot mean "red" in German? Because over time German speakers have agreed that that word has that meaning. Such are conventions. We may think of them as part of a very general EDI interchange agreement among communi cants. Think of convention as The Big Wrapper. (The important difference between language conventions and EDI interchange agreements, however, is that the first are usually implicit, whereas the latter work only if they are

explicitly written down and signed by all parties.) The second issue requires more extensive discussion. Speech act theory is,

in principle, well embedded in the literature on artificial agents and ma

chine-based communication. This necessitates careful examination of the se mantics of speech acts. The following comments?with which I entirely agree?are representative.

Systems based on distributed agent architectures require an agent communications language having a clearly defined semantics. . . .

Without one, agent designers cannot be certain that the interpreta tion they are giving to a "performative" is in fact the same as the one some other designer intended it to have. Moreover, designers are left unconstrained and unguided in attempts to extend the set of communication actions, and they cannot be certain how the existing or newly defined communication acts will be used in interagent com

munications protocols. [35, p. 24]

But in the literature, and indeed in many of the original philosophical documents, a central dogma is stated, or assumed, about how speech acts work to achieve communication between entities. The dogma has it "that we can define communicative [i.e., speech] acts in terms of the mental states of the agents performing the act [sic], and that these acts are effective ways to

form, regulate, and disband teams of agents" [35, p. 30].6 Let us call any such theory of speech act semantics a?t theory, in contrast

to which such theories as the one proposed in this paper are lean. Typically, fat theories do (and lean theories do not) define speech acts in terms of the beliefs and intentions of the speaker. For example, in fat theories, to assert that O the speaker expresses a belief in the truth of O and the intention that the addressee will come to believe that O (in part on the basis of what the




speaker said).7 But any such view is problematic on its face. For one thing, we are being offered an analysis, a clarification, of asserting, promising, and so on, in terms of beliefs and intentions that are hardly clear themselves.

How much has really been gained? For another, the theory requires some

thing that is surely false of artificial agents (as we know them): that they have beliefs and intentions. Smith and Cohen, for example, are quite typical in requiring this in their various definitions of speech actions [35]. And what does this suggest about the mental states of insects, or don't they communi

cate, after all?

Something has gone wrong in the central dogma, but how? And some

thing is certainly right about what the central dogmatists are saying: Beliefs and intentions are relevant to speech acts. Typically, for example, when you assert something you are also saying that you believe it and that you want

your listener to believe it too. How are we to make sense of all this? Much of the AI motivation for the central dogma of speech act theory arises from the

very real problem of inferring what an agent believes or intends, given what the agent has said [1]. The context in mind, as in the passages from Smith and Cohen quoted above, is usually societies of cooperating agents. It is im

plicitly hoped that with the proper definitions, the (speech-act-theoretic) messages sent between agents can be interpreted as very compact represen tations of what the sending agents are thinking.

This hope may indeed be reasonable?in special cases and restricted do mains. But if we switch from societies of cooperating agents to societies of commercial agents, as in electronic commerce, then defining the semantics of a messaging protocol in terms of the (private) mental states of the speakers seems quite tenuous. Without the assumption of full cooperation?an as

sumption that cannot be made in electronic commerce?it is feckless to char acterize the semantics of messaging with anything other than public information. The theory sketched here is, so far as I know, the only theory of the semantics of speech acts given entirely in terms of public (objective) data.

The theory also accounts for what is right, or right-headed, in the central

dogma. Usually, when you make a promise you are obligated to do what you promise. According to the present theory, this is not part of the core meaning of promising, but there is nothing to prevent it from being expressed in the extended meaning (in the wrapper), via meaning postulates or rules. Simi

larly, when you assert something, you usually believe it and are trying to get your listener to believe it too. Again, the theory has it that this is not part of the core meaning of asserting, but it can be handled, as before, as part of the extended meaning, via rules. And so on, generally.

Finally, an analogy by way of indicating a main reason why this approach is so convincing, or at least intriguing. Instead of speech acts (asserting, com

mitting, requesting, and so on) consider a concept like killing. Roughly, you kill someone if you do something that causes his or her death. As far as the

killing goes, it doesn't matter what you believed or intended. The victim is

dead, and you helped bring that about. Done, as far as the core meaning goes. But matters may change greatly depending on the extended meaning.

Whether you did or did not mean to kill the person matters. The person is still dead, but what should happen to you may be very different, depending




on the specific situation. The law, and common sense, recognizes many quali

fying circumstances, without reversing the fact that a killing has occurred. The core-meaning versus extended-meaning distinction that exists for the

concept of killing is widely applicable, ranging over at least the basic

concepts of speech acts. Laws exist, and you either obey them or not,

regardless of what you believe or intend. Conventions for communica

tion exist, and either you have promised or you haven't, regardless of

what you believed or intended. And in both cases, the facts?breaking the law or not, promising or not?can be ascertained through entirely

public information.

Comments and Conclusion

This sketch of a basic theory for an FLBC concludes with a few points arising from the discussion.

Our two design criteria have (plausibly) been met. Expressions 11 14 are in first-order logic (Design Criterion 2, for FOL representa tion). These expressions use only terms from a tripart public lexicon, Tables 5, 6, and 7 (kernel vocabulary), plus speaker and addressee (seeDesign Criterion 1, for public-only lexicons).

Temporal matters have not been mentioned. Adding time indices is fairly straightforward. Briefly, and as usual, they can be added

conjunctively. Events characteristically culminate, Cul. Write

Cul(e, t) for an event e that culminates at time t and introduce it to

message expressions conjunctively. See [28] for more extensive discussion. Similarly, finer grades of verb-phrase modification can

be introduced For example, to avow is to assert solemnly: asserting(e) A solemn(e) A ...

The mapping problem?the problem of specifying a translation to and from an EDI message and an organization's data processing system?is an expensive bugbear for current systems of electronic commerce. The approach sketched here does not obviate this prob lem. But it can help. If public and reasonably stable lexicons for electronic commerce come into use, new data-processing systems will tend to be designed in conformance with the lexicons. Also,

mapping of old systems will tend to be more cost-effective, if only because the mapping will be more widely applicable and robust.

The sketch has avoided discussion of important logical topics, such as possibility, deontic reasoning, and defeasible reasoning. Extending the theory to incorporate these concepts is an essential test of its validity.8

Part of the function of a map is to be usefully wrong. In fact, the nub of a map's usefulness lies in how it abstracts and approxi mates (i.e., how it is wrong about) reality. The sketch will have




pint

quart

Expression

suprapartfx, y)

asserting(x)

causefx, y)

delivering (xj describing(x)

honoring(x)

quantity(x, y)

receiving(x)

requesting(x)

unitfx, y)

H(x) Tlx) KM

Interpretation

the measure pint

the measure quart

x is an asserting event

x causes y x is a delivering event

x is a describing event

xis an honoring event

x is counted as y

yis part of x

x is a receiving event

x is a requesting event

x is measured in units of y

request x is honored

assertion x is true

promise x is kept

Table 7. Initial Version of Kernel Vocabulary.

served its purpose if it is useful for locating and correcting errors in the logical details constituting the underlying terrain.

The theory presented here?the representation scheme and its

semantics?supports the practicability of Design Criteria 1 (Public

only lexicons) and 2 (FOL representation). Proof, even adequate demonstration, is a long way off. This will come only with ex tended study of many examples. Thus it is fortuitous that the

availability of the World Wide Web and the prospects of electronic commerce have incited various flourishing activities aimed at

structuring domains of discourse. Much of this activity pertains to some aspect of the current excitement about XML, and much,

although hardly all, is organized by industry (digital libraries, museums, music companies, video companies, and so on) rather than generically.9 These will all provide useful test cases for the

general theory here hinted at.

But enough. I have attempted a rough map of the forest. Perhaps it is best now to study the trees.

Thanks to Ron Lee and the EUREDIS gang for patiently listening to and insightfully com

menting on a "brown bag" version of this paper on June 4,1997. Thanks also to Scott A. Moore and Yao-Hua Tan for comments on an earlier draft and many useful discussions. This

paper is a revised and extended version of the conference presentation [14].

NOTES 1. The public-only lexicons assumption does not require that every message be

based entirely on public lexicons. Exchange of particular vocabularies (e.g., part numbers from a catalog) should certainly be allowed, as should linguistic boot




strapping (agreements to define new expressions in terms of existing expressions). For reasons of space, these possibilities cannot be addressed in this paper, except to

say that nothing in the approach taken here militates against them. 2. Again for reasons of space, the discussion neglects states and processes, and

focuses only on events. See Parsons [28] for an excellent discussion of states and

processes. 3. Actually they are better described as distinct illocutionary points, but this is

a point finer than the resolution of this paper. 4. But (1) required additions to the thematic roles (Table 5 plus speaker and

addressee) should be, at most, minimal; (2) the kernel (application-independent) vocabulary should not contain more than a few hundred terms; (3) we should

expect to see in the large what we see even in the small examples here: extensive reuse of common, publicly defined terms.

5. See [17] for a discussion of how defeasible reasoning, temporal reasoning, deontic reasoning, and so on, are required for electronic commerce.

6. Only one exhibit is provided. This view, however, is central to the relevant AI literature and to most or all of the philosophical literature, e.g., Searle's work on

speech acts. See, e.g., [6, 21, 31, 32, 33, 34, 37]. 7. See, for example, [2]. 8. Much of the logical apparatus appropriate for processing messages may not

be needed in the messages proper. For example, promising defeasibly creates

obligations, but it may well be sufficient simply to utter a promise without explicit mention of deontic or defeasible concepts, etc., but to have the programs that

process such messages handle such logic. If this is correct, it is good news for the FLBC program. Much research remains to be done, but there is ground for opti mism on this score.

9. See [30] for an interesting overview.

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