When a natural language specification is translated into a formal one, it is important for objects and operations appearing in the natural language specification to be appropriately classified according to the framework of data types in the formal specification. In this paper, we propose a semi-automatic method of constructing a context-free grammar (cfg) representing an assignment of data types to words in a given natural language specification. In our method, a cfg is mechanically constructed from sample sentences in a natural language specification, where the cfg represents type declarations of expressions and type hierarchy. Then, the cfg is appropriately modified by adding nonterminals/production rules that represent type inclusion relations. In this modification process, candidates for the productions to be added are presented to the user. Finally, the cfg is simplified based on structural equivalence. The result of applying this method to a part of the OSI session protocol specification (39 sentences) is also presented. There was an example in which ambiguity of anaphoric bindings was solved by type checking based on the resulting cfg.

This paper presents a method of translating natural language specifications of communication protocols into algebraic specifications. Such a natural language specification specifies action sequences performed by the protocol machine (program). Usually, a sentence implicitly specifies the state of the protocol machine at which the described actions must be performed. The authors propose a method of analyzing the implicitly specified states of the protocol machine taking the OSI session protocol specification (265 sentences) as an example. The method uses the following properties: (a) syntactic properties of a natural language (English in this paper); (b) syntactic properties introduced by the target algebraic specifications, e.g., type constraints; (c) properties specific to the target domain, e.g., properties of data types. This paper also shows the result of applying this method to the main part of the OSI session protocol specification (29 paragraphs, 98 sentences). For 95 sentences, the translation system uniquely determines the states specified implicitly by these sentences, using only (a) and (b) described above. By using (c) in addition, each implicitly specified state in the remaining three sentences is uniquely determined.