Normative Pragmatics for Agent Communication Languages

The ability to communicate is one of the crucial properties of agents. In this paper a normative approach to the pragmatics of Agent Communication Languages (ACLs) is proposed. 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 includes the semantics and pragmatics of ACLs, focusing on a pragmatic level based on the social and normative notion of right. The framework is developed extending CTL with modal and deontic operators, and the pragmatics are expressed by means of a prolog-like declarative language.