[Attempto] Help with constructing optimal ACE sentences

[Norbert E. Fuchs]

> On 30 Mar 2015, at 1:36 , luke wallace <lukewallace1990 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I'm new to ACE, and I've been flooding this mailing list recently about it, but I feel this is actually a question which many newcomers might have but not get around to asking.
> 
> The most frusterating part of using the APE webclient to construct sentences once you understand "ACE in a nutshell" is where it's best or where it's appropriate to concatenate words into a noun representing an idea.
> 
> For example, if you past the following into APE it's correct, and the paraphrase logic is what is intended:
> 
> p:NFPA-13 is a standard that contains some requirements and some guidelines that are used for the n:design-and-installation of an n:automatic-fire-sprinkler-system that has a reasonable n:ability-to-protect-a-building from a fire.
> 
> However, the following sentence which has some small differences towards the end of the sentence also is correct in APE, and also contains the correct paraphrase logic.
> 
> p:NFPA-13 is a standard that contains some requirements and some guidelines that are used for the n:design-and-installation of an n:automatic-fire-sprinkler-system that has a n:reasonable-ability-to-protect-a-building-from-a-fire.
> 
> I'm at a loss on where to stop combining the words with dashes, what is the advantage or purpose of trying to keep everything outside of a dashed noun construct? 
> 
> In reality, the actual "idea" I think is best represented by constructing the entire end of the sentence into a single noun-idea like this:
> 
> n:reasonable-ability-to-protect-a-building-from-a-fire.
> 
> Perhaps all of this is wrong, and I should make a separate sentence which defines the idea like this:
> n:protection-level: a n:reasonable-ability-to-protect-a-building-from-a-fire.
> 
> p:NFPA-13 is a standard that contains some requirements and some guidelines that are used for the n:design-and-installation of an n:automatic-fire-sprinkler-system that has a specific n:protection-level.
> 
> My intent is to try and extract the greatest level of natural language expressiveness constructing ACE sentences, while still being able to ask a reasoner questions about the sentences and have inferences be made.

Luke

Let's try to clarify the situation.

Concerning hyphens you find in the "ACE Construction Rules":

> ACE content words are nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and prepositions. Content words can be simple (code), or compound with hyphens (check-code).

> Proper names can be singular and plural, and can occur without or with the definite determiner. Multiwords like United-Nations must be hyphenated.

> Phrasal particles and those prepositions that introduce a complement of a transitive verb, must be hyphenated to the verb. (Examples: John fills-in a form. A form is filled-in by John.) Prepositions for the indirect object of ditransitive verbs are not hyphenated since they do not immediately follow the verb. (Example: John gives a book to Mary.)

> Transitive adjectives always take a prepositional phrase as a complement and the preposition must be hyphenated to the adjective.(Examples: John is fond-of Mary. John is most fond-of Mary.)

Thus there are some cases where hyphens are required, and other cases where hyphenation is up to you.

Now let's try to make your sentence as close to your "intent [...] to try and extract the greatest level of natural language expressiveness constructing ACE sentences, while still being able to ask a reasoner questions about the sentences and have inferences be made."

Concerning the second requirement unnecessary hyphenation can prevent expected deductions. For example if you want to reason

John has a red apple. |- John has an apple.

hyphenating "red" and "apple" will not make this possible unless you add additional machinery "red-apple |- apple".

Returning to your sentence

> p:NFPA-13 is a standard that contains some requirements and some guidelines that are used for the n:design-and-installation of an n:automatic-fire-sprinkler-system that has a reasonable n:ability-to-protect-a-building from a fire.

Please note that your sentence is ambiguous in so far as it not clear whether "that are used for the n:design-and-installation of an n:automatic-fire-sprinkler-system that has a reasonable n:ability-to-protect-a-building from a fire." should refer only to "guidelines", or also to "requirements" as you probably intend. In ACE it will only refer to "guidelines" since a relative phrase always refers to the immediately preceding noun phrase.

I will rephrase your sentence with only the hyphens necessary for the multi-words. But even these could be eliminated with genitives and prepositions

p:NFPA-13 is a standard that contains some requirements and some guidelines. The standard is used for a design of an automatic n:fire-sprinkler-system that reasonably protects a building from a fire. The standard is used for an installation of the n:fire-sprinkler-system.

I hope that this reflects your intentions. Note that replacing "a design" by "the design" and "an installation" by "the installation" makes the text more English, but generates two warnings. The DRS generated is the same in both cases.

Best.

   --- nef

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