Explanation:

COBOL's design emphasizes readability and maintainability, primarily through its verbose, English-like syntax. This inherent characteristic makes COBOL code largely self-documenting. The use of descriptive words and structured divisions allows for clear understanding of program logic directly from the source code, reducing the need for extensive external documentation and making it highly suitable for large, long-lived business applications where clarity and maintainability are paramount. (a) Fortran: Incorrect. Fortran's concise, mathematical syntax often requires external documentation. (b) Cobol: Correct. Its English-like structure naturally facilitates comprehensive in-code documentation. (c) Pascal: Incorrect. While structured, Pascal doesn't possess the same level of English-like verbosity for inherent documentation. (d) C++: Incorrect. C++ is complex and requires diligent commenting and external documentation. (e) None of these: Incorrect, as (b) is the most appropriate choice.