Method and system for describing and identifying concepts in natural language text for information retrieval and processing

• US 20040078190A1
• Filed: 11/24/2003
• Published: 04/22/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 09/29/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Matrikon Inc. (Honeywell International Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Matrikon Inc. (Honeywell International Inc.)
• Inventors: Toole, Janine T, Kroon, Frederick W, Turcato, Davide, Tisher, Gordon W, McFetridge, Paul G, Popowich, Frederick P, Mosny, Milan, Nicholson, James Devlan, Fass, Daniel C
• Granted Patent: US 7,346,490 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/7
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3329 Natural language query formulation or dialogue systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3344 using natural language analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/38 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/211 Syntactic parsing, e.g. based on context-free grammar [CFG] or unification grammars
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/247 Thesauruses; Synonyms
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/253 Grammatical analysis; Style critique
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/268 Morphological analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/295 Named entity recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/30 Semantic analysis
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99932 Access augmentation or optimizing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99934 Query formulation, input preparation, or translation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access

Abstract

A method for information retrieval that matches occurrences of concepts in natural language text documents against descriptions of concepts in user queries. Said method, implemented in a computer system, includes a preferred version of the method that comprises (1) annotating natural language text in documents and other text-forms with linguistic information and Concepts and Concept Rules expressed in a Concept Specification Language (CSL) for a particular domain, (2) pruning and optimizing synonyms for a particular domain, (3) defining and learning said CSL Concepts and Concept Rules, (4) checking user-defined descriptions of Concepts represented in CSL (including user queries), and (5) retrieval by matching said user-defined descriptions (and queries) against said annotated text. CSL is a language for expressing linguistically-based patterns. Said patterns can represent the linguistic manifestations of concepts in text. Said concepts may derive from the sublanguages used by experts to analyze specialized domains including, but not limited to, insurance claims, police incident reports medical reports, and aviation incident reports.

Claims

1. A method of information retrieval, performed on a computer system that matches text in documents against user-defined descriptions of concepts, comprising:

a) identification of linguistic entities in the text of documents;

b) annotation of said identified linguistic entities in a text markup language to produce linguistically annotated documents;

c) identification of concepts using linguistic information, where said concepts are represented in a concept specification language and said concepts occur in one of;

1) said text of documents in which linguistic entities have been identified;

or

2) said linguistically annotated documents;

or

3) said stored linguistically annotated documents;

d) annotation of said identified concepts in said text markup language to produce conceptually annotated documents;

e) checking user-defined descriptions of concepts represented in said concept specification language; and

f) retrieval by matching said user-defined descriptions of concepts against said conceptually annotated documents.

2. The method according to claim 1 wherein said identification of linguistic entities in the text of documents comprises morphological, syntactic, and semantic entities.

3. The method according to claim 2 wherein said identification of linguistic entities in the text of documents comprises identifying words and phrases, and establishing dependencies between words and phrases.

4. he method according to claim 3 wherein said identification of linguistic entities in the text of documents and other text-forms is accomplished by a method selected from one or more of

a) preprocessing of text of documents;

b) tagging of text of documents;

c) parsing of text of documents.

5. The method according to claim 4 wherein annotation of said identified linguistic entities in the text of documents and other text-forms is known as linguistic annotation and produces a representation of linguistically annotated documents in a text markup language.

6. The method according to claim 5 wherein said linguistically annotated documents are stored.

7. The method according to claim 1 wherein said identification of concepts using linguistic information, where said concepts are represented in a concept specification language and said concepts occur in one of:

a) said text of documents in which linguistic entities have been identified as per claim 4, or

b) said linguistically annotated documents and other text-forms of claim 5;

or

c) said stored linguistically annotated documents and other text-forms of claim 6.

8. The method according to claim 7 wherein said concept specification language allows representations to be defined for concepts in terms of a linguistics-based pattern or set of patterns, where each pattern consists of words, phrases, other concepts, and relationships between words, phrases, and concepts.

9. The method according to claim 8 wherein said identification of concepts using linguistic information, when used with said concept specification language, consists of applying representations of concepts for the purpose of identifying concepts.

10. The method according to claim 7 wherein annotation of said identified concepts in linguistically annotated documents is known as conceptual annotation and produces a representation of conceptually annotated documents in a text markup language.

11. The method according to claim 7 wherein said identification of concepts uses linguistic information, and said concepts are represented in a concept specification language, as a result of methods for identifying concepts comprising:

a) compiling an expression from said concept specification language into finite state automata (FSAs);

b) matching said FSAs against linguistic entities in said linguistically annotated text.

12. The method according to claim 11 wherein concepts from said concept specification language are compiled into finite state automata (FSAs), said compilation into FSAs comprises one or both of the following:

a) the grammar from the parser used within the method to parse linguistically annotated text; and

b) sets of synonyms.

13. The method according to claim 7 wherein said identification of concepts uses linguistic information, and said concepts are represented in a concept specification language, as a result of methods for identifying concepts comprises recursive descent matching which consists of traversing an expression in said concept specification language and recursively matching constituents of said expression against linguistic ntities in linguistically annotated text.

14. The method according to claim 13 wherein identification of concepts using recursive descent matching , where recursive descent matching comprises sets of synonyms.

15. The method according to claim 7 wherein said identification of concepts uses linguistic information, and said concepts are represented in a concept specification language, as a result of methods for identifying concepts which comprise bottom-up matching comprising:

a) generating in a bottom-up fashion multiple spans, where each span is a word or constituent, or alternatively, a set of words and constituents that follow each other, plus structural information about the word and constituent;

b) generating in a bottom-up fashion spans consumed by single-term patterns in an expression in said concept specification language;

c) generating in a bottom-up fashion spans consumed by operators (such as A Precedes B and A OR B) in an expression in said concept specification language; and

.

d) matching in a bottom-up fashion said spans against linguistic entities in linguistically annotated text.

16. The method according to claim 15 wherein said identification of concepts uses bottom-up matching, where bottom-up matching comprises sets of synonyms.

17. The method according to claim 7 wherein said identification of concepts uses linguistic information, and said concepts are represented in a concept specification language, as a result of methods for identifying concepts that are index-based comprising use of an inverted index, where

a) said inverted index contains words, constituents, and tags for linguistic information, comprising syntactic information, from linguistically annotated text;

b) said inverted index contains spans for said words, constituents, and tags from linguistically annotated text;

c) where a span is a word or constituent, or alternatively, a set of words and constituents that follow each other, and structural information about the word and constituent.

18. The method according to claim 17 wherein said identification of concepts uses linguistic information, and said concepts are represented in a concept specification language, as a result of index-based methods for identifying concepts comprising index-based matching, where said index-based matching comprises:

a) using backtracking to resolve the constraints of operators (such as A Precedes B and A OR B) in an expression in said concept specification language;

b) attaching iterators to all items in the expression in said concept specification language;

c) using the iterators to produce matches of all items in the expression in said concept specification language against text in the inverted index;

d) maintaining a state for the iterator for each item in the expression in said concept specification language where that state is used to determine whether or not it has been processed before in the match of said expression against said inverted index, and also relevant information about the progress of the match;

e) maintaining a state for the iterator for each item that is a word in the expression in said concept specification language where that state includes, but is not limited to, the following information;

a list of applicable synonyms of the word in question, and the current synonym being used for matching;

an iterator into the inverted index that can enumerate all instances of the word in said index, and which records the current word;

f) during the course of a match, each item in the expression in said concept specification language is tested, and if successful, returns a set of spans covering the match of its corresponding sub-expression.

19. The method according to claim 18 wherein identification of concepts uses index-based matching, where index-based matching comprises sets of synonyms.

20. The method according to claim 17 wherein said identification of concepts uses linguistic information, and said concepts are represented in a concept specification language, as a result of index-based methods for identifying concepts comprising candidate checking index-based matching where said candidate checking index-based matching comprises identifying sets of candidate spans, where

a) a candidate span is a span that might, but does not necessarily, contain a concept to be identified;

b) any span that is not covered by a candidate span from the sets of candidate spans is one that cannot contain a concept to be identified;

c) each sub-expression of an expression in the concept specification language is associated with a procedure;

d) each such procedure is used to generate candidate spans or to check whether a given span is a candidate span.

21. The method according to claim 20 wherein said identification of concepts uses linguistic information, and said concepts are represented in a concept specification language, as a result of index-based methods for identifying concepts comprising candidate checking index-based matching where said candidate checking index-based matching produces candidate spans that serve as input to concept identification methods comprising compiling and matching finite state automata, recursive descent matching, bottom-up matching, and index based matching.

22. The method according to claim 7 wherein said identification of concepts uses linguistic information, and said concepts are represented in a concept specification language, as a result of methods for identifying concepts comprising using an inverted index with compiling and matching finite state automata, recursive descent matching, bottom-up matching, and simple index based matching, and any other possible concept identification methods.

23. The method according to claim 10 wherein said conceptually annotated documents are stored.

24. The method according to claim 1 wherein said concept representations to be defined and learned include, but are not limited to, hierarchies, rules, operators, patterns, and macros.

25. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of defining and learning said concept representations of said concept specification language comprises:

a) marking up instances of concepts in the text of documents;

b) creating new concept representations in the concept specification language from said highlighted instances of concepts;

c) adding and, if necessary, integrating said new concept representations in the concept specification language with pre-existing concept representations in said language.

26. The method according to claim 25 wherein creating new concept representations of said concept specification language comprises:

a) using concept identification methods to match together concept specification language vocabulary specifications and highlighted linguistically annotated documents and other text-forms;

b) defining linguistic variants;

c) adding synonyms from a set of synonyms;

d) adding parts of speech.

27. The method according to claim 1 further comprising the step of defining and learning said concept representations of said concept specification language comprising:

a) highlighting instances of concepts in the text of linguistically annotated documents to produce highlighted linguistically annotated documents;

where

b) said linguistically annotated documents are stored or produced on demand; and

c) said highlighted linguistically annotated documents are stored or produced on demand;

d) producing new concept representations in the concept specification language from said highlighted instances of concepts in said highlighted linguistically annotated documents; and

e) adding and, if necessary, integrating said new concept representations in the concept specification language with pre-existing concept representations in said language.

28. The method according to claim 1 further comprising the step of defining and learning said concept representations of said concept specification language comprising:

a) marking up instances of concepts in the text of documents to produce highlighted documents;

b) identification of linguistic entities in said highlighted documents and annotation of said documents to produce highlighted linguistically annotated documents;

c) said highlighted text documents, but are not limited to being, stored or produced on demand;

d) said highlighted linguistically annotated documents are stored or produced on demand;

e) producing new concept representations in the concept specification language from said highlighted instances of concepts in said highlighted linguistically annotated documents; and

f) adding and, if necessary, integrating said new concept representations in the concept specification language with pre-existing concept representations in said language.

29. The method according to claim 1 wherein said user-defined descriptions of concepts represented in said concept specification language comprise user queries to an information retrieval system, said user queries being represented in said concept specification language.

30. The method according to claim 29 wherein, if all known queries are represented in said concept specification language, then a proposed query represented in said concept specification language is subsequently used by said retrieval method.

31. The method according to claim 29 wherein, if all queries are not known in advance to be represented in said concept specification language, then a proposed query represented in said concept specification language is matched against a pre-stored repository of queries represented in said concept specification language and, if a match is found, then the query is subsequently used by said method of retrieval.

32. The method according to claim 29 wherein, if all queries are not known in advance to be represented in said concept specification language, then a proposed query represented in said concept specification language is matched against a pre-stored repository of queries represented in said concept specification language and, if a match is not found, then the query is subsequently used by said method of conceptual annotation.

33. The method according to claim 29 wherein retrieval matches said user-defined descriptions against said annotated text and retrieves matching documents.

35. A computer system for implementing said methods according to claims 1 or 34, located on a server, comprising a communications interface to one or more clients over a network or other communication connection, one or more central processing units (CPUs), one or more input devices, one or more program and data storage areas comprising a module and one or more submodules for an information retriever or processes for other purposes, and one or more output devices.

36. A computer system for implementing said methods according to claims 1 or 34, located on one or more clients, comprising a communications interface to a server over a network or other communication connection, one or more central processing units (CPUs), one or more input devices, one or more program and data storage areas comprising one or more submodules for an information retriever or processes for other purposes, and one or more output devices.

37. The computer system of claims 35 or 36 wherein the information retriever takes as input text in documents in the form of a signal from one or more input devices to a user interface, and carries out predetermined information retrieval processes to produce a collection of text in documents, which are output from the user interface in the form of a signal to one or more output devices.

38. The system according to claim 37 wherein predetermined information retrieval processes, accessed by said user interface, comprises:

a) identification of linguistic entities in the text of documents;

b) annotation of said identified linguistic entities in a text markup language to produce linguistically annotated documents;

c) storage of said linguistically annotated documents and other text-forms;

d) identification of concepts using linguistic information, where said concepts are represented in a concept specification language and said concepts to be identified occur in one of;

1) said text of documents in which linguistic entities have been identified as per a), or

2) said linguistically annotated documents of b);

or

3) said stored linguistically annotated documents of c);

e) annotation of said identified concepts in said text markup language to produce conceptually annotated documents;

f) storage of said conceptually annotated documents;

g) defining and learning concept representations of said concept specification language;

h) checking user-defined descriptions of concepts represented in said concept specification language; and

i) retrieval by matching said user-defined descriptions of concepts against said conceptually annotated documents.

39. The system according to claim 37 wherein predetermined information retrieval processes, accessed by said user interface, comprise a text document annotator, synonym processor, CSL processor, CSL parser, and text document retriever.

40. The system according to claim 39 wherein said text document annotator, accessed by said user interface, comprises a document loader from a document database, which passes text documents to the annotator, and outputs one or more annotated documents.

41. The system according to claim 40 wherein said annotator takes as input one or more text documents, outputs one or more annotated documents, and is comprised of a linguistic annotator which passes linguistically annotated documents to a conceptual annotator.

42. The system according to claim 41 wherein said linguistically annotated documents are annotated with a representation in a Text Markup Language.

43. The system according to claim 41 wherein said Text Markup Language (TML) has the syntax of XML, and hence that conversion to and from TML is accomplished with an XML converter.

44. The system according to claim 41 wherein said linguistic annotator, taking as input one or more text documents, and outputting one or more linguistically annotated documents, comprises one or more of the following:

a) a preprocessor;

b) a tagger;

c) a parser.

45. The system according to claim 44 wherein said preprocessor, taking as input one or more text documents (or the documents output by any other appropriate linguistic identification process) and outputting one or more preprocessed documentscomprises one or more of the following:

a) breaking text into words;

b) marking phrase boundaries;

c) identifying numbers, symbols, and other punctuation;

d) expanding abbreviations; and

e) splitting apart contractions.

46. The system according to claim 44 wherein said tagger takes as input a set of tags, one or more preprocessed documents and outputs one or more documents tagged with the appropriate part of speech from a given tagset.

47. The system according to claim 44 wherein said parser takes as input one or more tagged documents (or the documents output by any other appropriate linguistic identification process) and outputs one or more parsed documents.

48. The system according to claim 41 wherein said conceptual annotator takes as input one or more linguistically annotated documents, a list of CSL Concepts and Concept Rules for annotation, and data from a synonym resource, and outputs one or more conceptually annotated documents.

49. The system according to claim 41 wherein said conceptually annotated documents are annotated with a representation in TML.

50. The system according to claim 41 wherein said input of one or more linguistically annotated documents to said conceptual annotator comes from the following sources:

a) the linguistic annotator directly;

b) storage in some linguistically annotated form such as the representation produced by the final linguistic identification process of the linguistic annotator;

c) storage in TML followed by conversion from TML to the representation produced by the final linguistic identification process of the linguistic annotator.

51. The system according to claim 41 wherein said conceptual annotator comprises a Concept identifier.

52. The system according to claim 51 wherein said Concept identifier produces conceptually annotated documents as a result of:

a) compiling CSL into finite state automata (FSAs);

b) matching said FSAs against linguistically annotated documents.

53. The system according to claim 52 wherein said compilation into FSAs also comprises as part of compilation one or both of the following:

a) the grammar from the parser used by the system to parse linguistically annotated documents; and

b) sets of synonyms.

54. The system according to claim 51 wherein said Concept identifier produces conceptually annotated documents as a result of recursive descent matching which consists of traversing an expression in CSL and recursively matching constituents of said expression against linguistic entities in linguistically annotated text.

55. The system according to claim 54 wherein said recursive descent matching comprises sets of synonyms.

56. The system according to claim 51 wherein said Concept identifier produces conceptually annotated documents as a result of bottom-up matching which comprises:

a) generating in a bottom-up fashion multiple spans, where each span is a word or constituent, or alternatively, a set of words and constituents that follow each other, plus some structural information about the word and constituent;

b) generating in a bottom-up fashion spans consumed by single-term patterns in an expression in CSL;

c) generating in a bottom-up fashion spans consumed by operators in an expression in CSL; and

.

d) matching in a bottom-up fashion said spans against linguistic entities in linguistically annotated documents.

57. The system according to claim 56 wherein said bottom-up matching comprises sets of synonyms.

58. The system according to claim 51 wherein said Concept identifier produces conceptually annotated documents as a result of methods for identifying Concepts that are index-based comprising use of an inverted index, where

a) said inverted index contains words, constituents, and tags for linguistic information from linguistically annotated text;

b) said inverted index contains spans for said words, constituents, and tags from linguistically annotated text;

c) where a span is a word or constituent, or alternatively, a set of words and constituents that follow each other, plus structural information about the word(s) and constituent(s).

59. The system according to claim 56 wherein said Concept identifier using index-based methods produces conceptually annotated documents as a result of index-based matching, where said index-based matching comprises:

a) using backtracking to resolve the constraints of CSL operators in an expression in CSL;

b) attaching iterators to all items in the CSL expression;

c) using the iterators to produce matches of all items in the CSL expression against text in the inverted index;

d) maintaining a state for the iterator for each item in the CSL expression where that state is used to determine whether or not it has been processed before in the match of said expression against said inverted index, and also relevant information about the progress of the match;

e) maintaining a state for the iterator for each item that is a word in the expression in CSL where that state includes, but is not limited to, the following information;

a list of applicable synonyms of the word in question, and the current synonym being used for matching;

an iterator into the inverted index that can enumerate all instances of the word in said index, and which records the current word;

f) during the course of a match, each item in the CSL expression is tested, and if successful, returns a set of spans covering the match of its corresponding subexpression.

60. The system according to claim 59 wherein said simple index-based matching comprises sets of synonyms.

61. The method according to claim 56 wherein said identification of concepts uses linguistic information, and said concepts are represented in a concept specification language, as a result of index-based methods for identifying concepts comprising candidate checking index-based matching where said candidate checking index-based matching comprises identifying sets of candidate spans, where

a) a candidate span is a span that might, but does not necessarily, contain a Concept to be identified;

b) any span that is not covered by a candidate span from the sets of candidate spans is one that cannot contain a Concept to be identified;

c) each sub-expression of a CSL Expression is associated with a procedure;

d) each such procedure is used to generate candidate spans or to check whether a given span is a candidate span.

62. The system according to claim 61 wherein said candidate spans produced by said candidate checking index-based matching serve as input to Concept identification methods comprises compiling and matching finite state automata, recursive descent matching, bottom-up matching, and simple index based matching.

63. The system according to claim 56 wherein said Concept identifier produces conceptually annotated documents as a result of methods for identifying Concepts comprising using an inverted index with compiling and matching finite state automata, recursive descent matching, bottom-up matching, and simple index based matching.

64. The system according to claim 48 wherein said conceptually annotated documents are stored.

65. The system according to claim 20 wherein said CSL processor, accessed by said user interface, comprises a CSL Concept and Concept Rule learner, and a CSL query checker.

66. The system according to claim 65 wherein said CSL Concept and Concept Rule learner comprises:

a) highlighting instances of Concepts in the text of documents;

b) creating new CSL Rules from said highlighted instances of Concepts;

c) creating new CSL Concepts from said CSL Rules

d) adding and, if necessary, integrating said new CSL Concepts and Concept Rules with pre-existin g CSL Concepts and Concept Rules.

67. The system according to claim 66 wherein creating new CSL Rules comprises:

a) using the Concept identifier to match together CSL vocabulary specifications and highlighted linguistically annotated documents;

b) defining linguistic variants;

c) adding synonyms from a set of synonyms;

d) adding parts of speech.

68. The system according to claim 65 wherein said CSL Concept and Concept Rule learner comprises means for:

a) highlighting instances of Concepts in the text of linguistically annotated documents to produce highlighted linguistically annotated documents;

where

b) said linguistically annotated documents can be either produced on demand or stored in TML or other formats; and

c) said highlighted linguistically annotated documents can be either produced on demand or stored in TML or other formats;

d) producing new CSL Concept Rules from said highlighted instances of Concepts in said highlighted linguistically annotated document; and

e) adding and, if necessary, integrating said new CSL Concepts and Concept Rules with pre-existing CSL Concepts and Concept Rules.

69. The system according to claim 65 wherein said CSL Concept and Concept Rule learner comprises means for:

a) highlighting instances of Concepts in the text of documents to produce highlighted documents;

b) linguistic annotation of said documents to produce highlighted linguistically annotated documents;

c) said highlighted text documents can be either produced on demand or stored in TML or other formats;

d) said highlighted linguistically annotated documents can be either produced on demand or stored in TML or other formats;

e) producing new and CSL Concept Rules from said highlighted instances of Concepts in said highlighted linguistically annotated documents; and

f) adding and, if necessary, integrating said new CSL Concepts and Concept Rules with pre-existing CS L Concepts and Concept Rules.

71. The system according to claim 65 wherein said CSL query checker accessed by said user interface, takes as input a proposed CSL query and, if all queries are known in advance, passes said query to the retriever.

72. The system according to claim 65 wherein said CSL query checker accessed by said user interface, takes as input a proposed CSL query and, if all queries are not known in advance, matches said query against known CSL Concepts and Concept Rules and, if a match is found, then the query is parsed with a CSL parser and passed to the retriever.

73. The system according to claim 65 wherein said CSL query checker accessed by said user interface, takes as input a proposed CSL query and, if all queries are not known in advance, matches said query against known CSL Concepts and Concept Rules and, if a match is not found, then the query (a CSL expression) is parsed with a CSL parser and added to the list of CSL Concepts and Concept Rules to be annotated, which are then passed to the annotator.

74. The system according to claim 39 wherein said CSL parser takes as input a synonym database, CSL query, and CSL Concepts and Rules, and outputs CSL Concepts and Rules for annotation as a result of the following:

a) word compilation;

b) Concept compilation;

c) downward synonym propagation; and

d) upward synonym propagation.

75. The system according to claim 39 wherein said text document retriever accessed by said user interface, comprises a retriever which takes one or more annotated documents as input, passes retrieved and categorized documents to a TML converter, which passes them to a document viewer.

34. A method for information retrieval, performed on a computer system that matches text in documents and other text-forms against user-defined descriptions of concepts, comprising:

a) identification of linguistic entities in the text of documents;

b) annotation of said identified linguistic entities in, but not limited to, a Text Markup Language (TML) to produce linguistically annotated documents;

c) storage of said linguistically annotated documents;

d) identification of Concepts and Concept Rules using linguistic information, where said Concepts and Concept Rules are represented in a Concept Specification Language (CSL) and said Concepts-to-be-identified and Concept Rules-to-be-identified occur in one of;

1) said text of documents in which linguistic entities have been identified as per a), or

2) said linguistically annotated documents of b);

or

3) said stored linguistically annotated documentsof c);

e) annotation of said identified Concepts and Concept Rules in said TML to produce conceptually annotated documents;

f) storage of said conceptually annotated documents;

g) defining and learning CSL Concepts and Concept Rules;

h) checking user-defined descriptions of Concepts and Concept Rules represented in CSL; and

i) retri val by matching said user-defined descriptions of CSL Concepts and Concept Rules against said conceptually annotated documents.

70. The system according to claim 34 wherein said user-defined descriptions of CSL Concepts and Concept Rules comprise user queries to an information retrieval system, said user queries being represented in CSL.

76. The method according to claim 34 wherein a tag hierarchy in the CSL is a set of declarations, each declaration relating a tag to a set of tags, declaring that each of the latter tags is to be considered an instance of the former tag.

77. The method according to claim 34 wherein a Concept in the CSL is used to represent concepts.

78. The method according to claim 77 wherein a Concept in the CSL can either be global or internal to other Concepts.

79. The method according to claim 77 wherein a Concept in the CSL uses words and other Concepts in the definition of Concept Rules.

80. The method according to claim 79 wherein a Concept Rule in the CSL comprises an optional name internal to the Concept followed by a Pattern.

81. The method according to claim 80 wherein a Pattern in the CSL may match:

a) single terms in an annotated text;

or

b) some configuration in an annotated text.

82. The method according to claim 81 wherein a single-term Pattern in the CSL may comprise a reference to:

a) the name of a word, and optionally;

b) its part of speech tag; and

c) synonyms of the word.

83. The method according to claim 81 wherein a configurational Pattern in the CSL may consist of the form A Operator B, where the Operator is Boolean.

84. The method according to claim 81 wherein a configuration in the CSL is any expression in the notation used to represent syntactic descriptions.

85. The method according to claim 84 wherein a configurational Pattern in the CSL may consist of the form A Operator B, where the Operator is of two types:

a) Dominance, and

b) Precedence.

86. The method according to claim 84 wherein a configurational Pattern in the CSL according to claim 85 may consist of the form A Dominates B, where

a) A is a syntactic constituent;

b) B is any Pattern.

87. The method according to claim 86 wherein a configurational Pattern in the CSL of the form A Dominates B may be wide-matched, where said wide-matching returns the interval of A in a text is returned instead of B;

and where said interval is a consecutive sequence of words in a text that is represented as two integers separated by a dash.

88. The method according to claim 87 wherein a configurational Pattern in the CSL consists of the form A Precedes B, where

a) A is any Pattern;

b) B is any Pattern.

89. The method according to claim 83 wherein a Boolean operator in the CSL can be applied to any Patterns to obtain further Patterns.

90. The method according to claim 81 wherein any of the Patterns thus defined in the CSL is a CSL Expression.

91. The method according to claim 81 wherein a Pattern thus defined in the CSL is fully recursive.

92. The method according to claim 81 wherein a Macro in the CSL represents a Pattern in a compact, parameterized form and can be used wherever a Pattern is used.

93. The method according to claim 34 wherein said concepts, represented in said CSL or any other concept specification language derive from the sublanguages used by experts to analyze event-based specialized domains comprising insurance claims, police incident reports, medical reports, and aviation incident reports.