Controlling the language of statutes and regulations for semantic processing

Controlled Legal German (CLG) is a subset of legal German specifically designed to facilitate the semantic processing of Swiss statutes and regulations. In this paper, we describe the strategies CLG employs to reduce ambiguity and underspecification in such texts, and the methods it uses to maintain proximity to conventional legal language. The presented discussion suggests that, if existing synergies are properly exploited, the concept of controlled natural language can be of benefit to the semantic processing of legal texts as well as to legislative drafting.