Methods and systems for generating natural language descriptions from data
First Claim
1. A method for generating a natural language description of a user-selected item comparing the user-selected item to at least one comparison item, wherein the characteristics of each item are defined by a plurality of specifications, the method comprising:
- retrieving the specifications for the user-selected item and the at least one comparison item from a storage medium;
comparing the specifications for the user-selected item to the specifications for the at least one comparison item;
generating a plurality of natural language sentences describing the user-selected item, wherein the text of the natural language sentences is determined based on the outcome of the comparisons of the specifications of the user-selected item to the specifications of the at least one comparison item, and combining the generated natural language sentences into a natural language document describing the user-selected item.
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Abstract
The invention is directed to a natural language generation (NLG) software system that generates rich, content-sensitive human language descriptions based on unparsed raw domain-specific data. In one embodiment, the NLG software system may include a data parser/normalizer, a comparator, a language engine, and a document generator. The data parser/normalizer may be configured to retrieve specification information for items to be described by the NLG software system, to extract pertinent information from the raw specification information, and to convert and normalize the extracted information so that the items may be compared specification by specification. The comparator may be configured to use the normalized data from the data parser/normalizer to compare the specifications of the items using comparison functions and interpretation rules to determine outcomes of the comparisons. The language engine may be configured to cycle through all or a subset of the normalized specification information, to retrieve all sentence templates associated with each of the item specifications, to call the comparator to compute or retrieve the results of the comparisons between the item specifications, and to recursively generate every possible syntactically legal sentence associated with the specifications based on the retrieved sentence templates. The document generator may be configured to select one or more discourse models having instructions regarding the selection, organization and modification of the generated sentences, and to apply the instructions of the discourse model to the generated sentences to generate a natural language description of the selected items.
245 Citations
22 Claims
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1. A method for generating a natural language description of a user-selected item comparing the user-selected item to at least one comparison item, wherein the characteristics of each item are defined by a plurality of specifications, the method comprising:
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retrieving the specifications for the user-selected item and the at least one comparison item from a storage medium;
comparing the specifications for the user-selected item to the specifications for the at least one comparison item;
generating a plurality of natural language sentences describing the user-selected item, wherein the text of the natural language sentences is determined based on the outcome of the comparisons of the specifications of the user-selected item to the specifications of the at least one comparison item, and combining the generated natural language sentences into a natural language document describing the user-selected item. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. An apparatus structured to generate a natural language description of a user-selected item comparing the user-selected item to at least one comparison item, wherein the characteristics of each item are defined by a plurality of specifications, the apparatus comprising:
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a processing unit; and
a memory device operatively coupled to the processing unit, the memory device storing a software program structured to cause the processing unit to;
retrieve the specifications for the user-selected item and the at least one comparison item from one of the memory device and a storage medium operatively coupled to the processing unit, compare the specifications for the user-selected item to the specifications for the at least one comparison item, generate a plurality of natural language sentences describing the user-selected item, wherein the text of the natural language sentences is determined based on the outcome of the comparisons of the specifications of the user-selected item to the specifications of the at least one comparison item, and combine the generated natural language sentences into a natural language document describing the user-selected item. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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15. A computer readable medium storing a software program structured to cause a server to:
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retrieve a plurality of specifications for a user-selected item and for at least one comparison item from a storage medium, wherein the characteristics of each item are defined by the plurality of specifications;
compare the specifications for the user-selected item to the specifications for the at least one comparison item;
generate a plurality of natural language sentences describing the user-selected item, wherein the text of the natural language sentences is determined based on the outcome of the comparisons of the specifications of the user-selected item to the specifications of the at least one comparison item, and combine the generated natural language sentences into a natural language document having a natural language description of the user-selected item comparing the user-selected item to the at least one comparison item.
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16. A natural language generation system for generating a natural language description of a user-selected item comparing the user-selected item to at least one comparison item, wherein the characteristics of each item are defined by a plurality of specifications, the system comprising:
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a data parser/normalizer configured to retrieve the specifications for the user-selected item and the at least one comparison item from a storage medium;
a comparator configured to compare the specifications for the user-selected item to the specifications for the at least one comparison item;
a language engine configured to generate a plurality of natural language sentences describing the user-selected item, wherein the text of the natural language sentences is determined based on the outcome of the comparisons by the comparator of the specifications of the user-selected item to the specifications of the at least one comparison item; and
a document generator configured to combine the natural language sentences generated by the language engine into a natural language document describing the user-selected item. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22)
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Specification