A communication framework for applications

The author proposes a communication framework for applications that is reusable and extensible. An existing recursively defined language is modified so that the message interpretation scheme can determine whether the message is meant to be interpreted literally or not. This makes it possible for the system to take advantage of its foundations in speech act theory with a minimum of inferential overhead. It is also extended to incorporate discourse management information. The author recommends that discourse be represented in a general planning language such as Petri nets. Actual discourse is allowed to deviate from these plans in unexpected ways so applications get the benefit of automated message management but without the inflexibility this usually requires