An approach to the formal specification of lingware

Abstract

This paper has two purposes. First, it suggests a formal approach for specifying and verifying lingware. This approach is based on a unified notation of the main existing formalisms for describing linguistic knowledge (i.e. Formal Grammars, Unification Grammars, HPSG, etc.) on the one hand, and the integration of data and processing on the other. Accordingly, a lingware specification includes all related aspects in a unified framework. This facilitates the development of a lingware system, since one has to follow a single development process instead of two separate ones. Secondly, it presents an environment for the formal specification of lingware, based on the suggested approach, which is neither restricted to a particular kind of application nor to a particular class of linguistic formalisms. This environment provides interfaces enabling the specification of both linguistic knowledge and functional aspects of a lingware system. Linguistic knowledge is specified with the usual grammatical formalisms, whereas functional aspects are specified with a suitable formal notation. Both descriptions will be integrated into the same framework to obtain a complete requirement specification that can be refined towards an executable program.