[SCL] new draft

[Bill Andersen]

On Dec 19, 2003, at 1024, John F. Sowa wrote:

> Pat,
>
> The latest (Dec 19) draft looks much better, but
> I haven't yet had a chance to study it in detail.

I agree.  It's much more readable than the previous version.  Nice job,
Pat!

> However, the use of the word "ontology" as a synonym
> for any set of sentences still sets my teeth on edge.
> I agree with you that many people use it as a meaningless
> buzz word -- but just for that reason it is likely to
> become obsolete as soon as the latest bubble (i.e. the
> so-called semantic web) pops.
>
> I really wish you would do a global change of "ontology"
> to "module".

I agree with John here.  How about "theory" - is that not the accepted
term for a set of sentences intended to constrain the interpretation of
a set of terms?  This might be too high-falootin a term for the general
public, so I could live with "module".

> By the way, I am now writing a grammar for a very general
> version of controlled English, which supports nearly the
> full SCL semantics, including sequence variables.  The
> only thing I haven't found a natural way of expressing
> is the option of quantifying over relations.

John, would you send this to me?  I'm working with a parser generator
to create SCL Java objects from concrete syntaxes and would like to
see how this works.

   .bill