A Semantic and Pragmatic Framework for the Specification of Agent Communication Languages: Motivational Attitudes and Norms

The ability to communicate is one of the most important properties of agents. In an open environment, like the Internet, in which agents are designed in many different ways, it is important to clearly establish the meaning of a standard language for artificial agents. Traditionally, the pragmatics of ACLs take the form of interaction protocols, which only specify the order in which messages occur without taking into account the content of the message, or the role of the agents. We present a unified ACL which attempts to define the ACL semantics and pragmatics within the same framework, including an intentional view of speaker’s meaning and a pragmatic level based on the normative notion of right. The framework is developed by defining a logic with modal and deontic operators grounded in a computational model. The pragmatics takes the form of declarative rules.