RuleCNL: A Controlled Natural Language for Business Rule Specifications

TL;DR

RuleCNL is a controlled natural language designed for unambiguous, machine-readable business rule specifications, aligning with business vocabulary and supporting SBVR standard mappings.

Contribution

It introduces RuleCNL, a CNL that ensures traceability and consistency with business vocabulary and provides tools for automatic SBVR translation.

Findings

Supports unambiguous business rule expression

Aligns rules with business vocabulary for traceability

Provides tool support for rule authoring and SBVR mapping

Abstract

Business rules represent the primary means by which companies define their business, perform their actions in order to reach their objectives. Thus, they need to be expressed unambiguously to avoid inconsistencies between business stakeholders and formally in order to be machine-processed. A promising solution is the use of a controlled natural language (CNL) which is a good mediator between natural and formal languages. This paper presents RuleCNL, which is a CNL for defining business rules. Its core feature is the alignment of the business rule definition with the business vocabulary which ensures traceability and consistency with the business domain. The RuleCNL tool provides editors that assist end-users in the writing process and automatic mappings into the Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Business Rules (SBVR) standard. SBVR is grounded in first order logic and includes constructs called semantic formulations that structure the meaning of rules.