The state-event calculus (secalc) is a meta-model for software system behavior. States refer to situations of some duration while events refer to system actions performed by system entities in relation to other system entities and external inputs. The main objectives guiding the initial development of secalc were that: 1) it be comprehensible, 2) it be derivable from functional specifications (with a natural language component), and 3) it serve as a basis for system design, development and testing. To facilitate comprehension and derivability, the initial design of secalc displays a strong conceptual correspondence to the structural components of natural language: states and events correspond to clauses, their components to phrases, and temporal/ causal relations to conjunctions. This proposal addresses: 1) further development of the secalc model as a basis for design and testing and 2) automatic or semi-automatic derivation of the secalc model from restricted natural language functional specifications. Deliverables are: an extended state event calculus meta-mode, an extensible, interactive translater to generate the model from program performance specifications in natural language, and model based application tools to check completeness and consistency of specifications.
Keywords: META-MODEL CALCULUS SOFTWARE DESIGN SPECIFICATIONS NATURAL LANGUAG SEMANTIC NETWOR FUNCTIONAL SPEC C
