Communication among agents collaborating on a task often involves complex utterances about multiple actions. In this paper, we analyze two particular multiaction constructions, utterances with means clauses and utterances with rationale clauses. We present the distinctive features of these constructions, describe their logical form, and define interpretation rules for deriving their meaning in terms of the generation, enablement and Contributes relations between actions which have been motivated independently by research in plan recognition. We also demonstrate that these rules yield the appropriate properties of rationale clauses and means clauses and show how these constructions can be distinguished algorithmically.
Cecile T. Balkanski