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evaluate :content <expression> :language <word> :ontology <word> :reply-with <expression> :sender <word> :receiver <word>Performatives of this type indicate that the sender would like the recipient to simplify the expression in the :content parameter, and reply with the result. (Simplification is a language specific concept, but it should subsume ``believed equal''.)
reply :content <expression> :language <word> :ontology <word> :in-reply-to <expression> :force <word> :sender <word> :receiver <word>Performatives of this type indicate that the sender believes that :content is an appropriate reply to the query in the :in-reply-to message.
ask-if :content <expression> :language <word> :ontology <word> :reply-with <expression> :sender <word> :receiver <word>A performative of this type is the same as evaluate, except that the :content must be a sentence schema in the :language. In other words, the sender wishes to know if the :content matches any sentence in the recipient's VKB.
ask-about :content <expression> :language <word> :ontology <word> :reply-with <expression> :sender <word> :receiver <word>A performative of this type is like ask-if, except that the reply should be the collection of all sentences in the recipient's VKB that contain a sentence or term that matches the sentence or term schema in the :content. Note that the reply :language and :ontology must include a ``collection'' construct (e.g., sets, lists, bags, etc.).
ask-one :content <expression> :aspect <expression> :language <word> :ontology <word> :reply-with <expression> :sender <word> :receiver <word>A performative of this type is like an ask-if, except that the :aspect parameter describes the form of the desired reply; for some match of the :content in the recipient's VKB, the reply will be the :aspect with all of its schema variables replaced by the values bound to the corresponding schema variables in :content. The value of the :aspect parameter defaults to the value of the :content parameter. Note that performatives of this type make most sense with languages that define schema variables.
ask-all :content <expression> :aspect <expression> :language <word> :ontology <word> :reply-with <expression> :sender <word> :receiver <word>A performative of this type is like ask-one, except that the reply should be a collection of instantiated aspects corresponding to all matches of the :content sentences on the recipient's VKB.
sorry :in-reply-to <expression> :sender <word> :receiver <word>A performative of this type indicates that the sender understands, but is not able to provide any (more) response(s) to the message referenced by the :in-reply-to parameter. A performative of this type may be used in response to an evaluate or ask-one query, when no other reply is appropriate. It may also be used as the last response to a multi-response query performative (e.g., the performatives in the next section).
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