A Domain-Specific Language for Normative Texts with Timing Constraints

Abstract

We are interested in the formal modelling and analysis of normative documents containing temporal restrictions. This paper presents a new language for this purpose, based on the deontic modalities of obligation, permission, and prohibition. It allows the specification of normative clauses over actions, which can be conditional on guards and timing constraints defined using absolute or relative discrete time. The language is compositional, where each feature is encoded as a separate operator. This allows for a straightforward operational semantics and a highly modular translation into timed automata. We demonstrate the use of the language by applying it to a case study and showing how this can be used for testing, simulation and verification of normative texts.