Semantic programming language

• US 20050289522A1
• Filed: 04/23/2004
• Published: 12/29/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 04/23/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Parkinson, David J., Cipollone, Domenic J., Calcagno, Michael V., Olsen, Mari J. B., Chang, Su Chin, Shahani, Ravi C.
• Granted Patent: US 7,761,858 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/140
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/30 Semantic analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/20 Software design
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/315 Object-oriented languages
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/18 using natural language modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/1815 Semantic context, e.g. disambiguation of the recognition hypotheses based on word meaning
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99944 Object-oriented database structure

Abstract

A software development tool for programming natural language software applications is described. The software development tool includes a programming language and a compiler. The programming language has a set of programming constructs for facilitating natural language programming. The compiler is adapted to take a software program containing instances of the set of programming constructs and to generate a software application.

Claims

1. A software development tool for programming natural language software applications, the software development tool comprising:

a programming language comprising a set of programming constructs for facilitating natural language programming; and

a compiler adapted to take a software program containing instances of the set of programming constructs and to generate a software application.

2. The software development tool of claim 1 wherein the programming language further comprises:

primitive types at least some of which model semantics of a natural language.

3. The software development tool of claim 1 wherein the compiler generates a declarative schema based on the software program.

4. The software development tool of claim 1 and further comprising:

a class library comprising a restriction base class representative of a primitive Restriction type, the primitive restriction type for modeling properties of semantic elements.

5. The software development tool of claim 1 and further comprising:

a class library comprising a Frame base class representative of a primitive Frame type, the primitive Frame type for modeling semantics of events.

6. The software development tool of claim 1 and further comprising:

a class library comprising an Entity base class representative of a primitive Entity type, the Entity type for modeling semantics of noun or adjective phrases.

7. The software development tool of claim 1 wherein the software application comprises:

a set of resolvable types for selecting between linguistically possible types, each resolvable type being processed according to resolution semantics to determine if an instance of the resolvable type exists.

8. The software development tool of claim 7 wherein pairs of resolvable types are related according to semantic rules, and wherein one resolvable type of the pair of resolvable types may fail resolution semantics without affecting the existence of the other resolvable type.

9. The software development tool of claim 1 further comprising:

an object based on a semantic model, the object adapted to decide whether to accept a property on the object.

10. The software development tool of claim 1 wherein the software program based on the programming language comprises:

a declarative model of natural language semantics of an application domain;

imperative code; and

related program structures;

wherein the declarative model, the imperative code and the related program structures may interact to examine and refer to an application state.

11. The software development tool of claim 1 further comprising:

a linguistic object model defining a set of linguistic primitive types which comprise a portion of the primitive types of the programming language.

12. The software development tool of claim 2 wherein the programming language defines a set of programming types which comprise a portion of the primitive types.

13. The software development tool of claim 1 wherein the set of programming constructs comprises:

a syntactical framework for coordinating relationships between non-primitive types and primitive types.

14. The software development tool of claim 1 wherein the set of programming constructs comprises:

keywords of the programming language, at least one of the keywords for accessing a primitive type.

15. The software development tool of claim 2 further comprising:

non-primitive types defined in the programming language, wherein one or more of the non-primitive types inherit from the primitive types.

16. The software development tool of claim 2 wherein a software developer describes a semantic model using the set of programming constructs and primitive types.

17. The software development tool of claim 1 wherein a software program created by a developer describes relationships among types that interact with a runtime.

18. The software development tool of claim 1 wherein a runtime places constraints on construction of an instance of a semantic model during operation.

19. A computer readable medium storing a software development tool for natural language software development, comprising:

a programming language comprising a set of programming constructs for facilitating programming of natural language software applications; and

a compiler adapted to take source code containing instances of the set of programming constructs and to generate computer readable machine code and declarative schema.

20. The computer readable medium of claim 19 wherein the programming language further comprises:

primitive types for modeling the semantics of the natural language.

21. The computer readable medium of claim 19 wherein the set of programming constructs comprises:

a set of non-primitive types for modeling semantics of an utterance or of associated commmands.

22. The computer readable medium of claim 21 wherein the set of programming constructs further comprises:

a syntactical framework for coordinating relationships between the set of non-primitive types and primitive types for modeling the semantics of the natural language.

23. The computer readable medium of claim 20 wherein the primitive types comprise:

a base command type for modeling a command contained in an utterance.

24. The computer readable medium of claim 19 wherein the programming language is based on C#.

25. The computer readable medium of claim 19 wherein the programming language is based on an object-oriented programming language.

26. The computer readable medium of claim 20 further comprising:

a linguistic object model defining a set of types which comprise the primitive types of the programming language.

27. The computer readable medium of claim 19 wherein the programming constructs comprise:

a “

with restriction”

for introducing a clause that is triggered by an instance of a type that can be associated to a slot of another type.

28. The computer readable medium of claim 19 and further comprising:

a class library comprising a restriction base class representative of a primitive Restriction type for modeling properties of semantic elements.

29. The computer readable medium of claim 19 and further comprising:

a class library comprising a Frame base class representative of a primitive Frame type for modeling semantics of events.

30. The computer readable medium of claim 19 and further comprising:

a class library comprising an Entity base class representative of a primitive Entity type for modeling semantics of noun phrases.

31. The computer readable medium of claim 19 and further comprising:

a class library comprising an Entity base class representative of a primitive Entity type for modeling semantics of adjective phrases.

32. The computer readable medium of claim 19 wherein the computer readable machine code comprises:

a set of resolvable types for selecting between linguistically possible types, each resolvable type being processed according to resolution semantics to determine if an instance of the resolvable type exists.

33. The computer readable medium of claim 31 wherein pairs of resolvable types are related according to semantic rules, and wherein one resolvable type of the pair of resolvable types may fail resolution semantics without affecting the existence of the other resolvable type.

34. The computer readable medium of claim 19 further comprising:

an object based on the semantic model, the object adapted to decide whether to accept a property on the object based on the declarative schema.

35. The computer readable medium of claim 19 wherein the program based on the programming language comprises:

a declarative model of natural language semantics of an application domain;

imperative code; and

related program structures;

wherein the declarative model, the imperative code and the related program structures may interact to examine and refer to an application state.

36. A method for creating a natural language enabled software application, the method comprising:

creating a program from a set of programming constructs for facilitating natural language programming, the program describing features in the software application that rely on natural language input; and

compiling the program into a software application.

37. The method of claim 36 wherein the step of creating further comprises:

creating the program from primitive types, at least one of the primitive types adapted to model semantics of a natural language

38. The method of claim 36 wherein the step of compiling further comprises:

generating a declarative schema based on the program.

39. The method of claim 36 wherein the set of semantic programming constructs comprises:

a set of non-primitive types for modeling semantics of an utterance or of an associated command.

40. The method of claim 39 wherein the set of semantic programming constructs further comprises:

a syntactical framework for coordinating relationships between the set of non-primitive types and primitive types.

41. The method of claim 39 and further comprising:

adding to the set of non-primitive types via the program.

42. The method of claim 39 wherein one or more of the non-primitive types in the set of non-primitive types inherits from primitive types defined in a linguistic object model.

43. The method of claim 38 wherein the declarative schema describes relationships among semantic modeling types created by a developer of a natural language enabled software application.