Automated generation of electronic procedures: procedure constraint grammars

This paper focuses on a generalization of the notion of electronic trade procedures. Instead of designing specific trade procedures for each possible variation of a transaction, we develop a generative grammar formalism that defines entire families of related trade procedures. Since trade procedures are influenced by various situation-specific factors from multiple sources, we have been led to modify the usual grammar formalism to take into account a variety of constraints. The formalism is therefore called a procedure constraint grammar (PCG). The resulting functionality allows for a far greater level of flexibility to customized electronic trade procedures to specific contracting situations. Numerous examples are provided.