Linguistic user interface

• US 20070179776A1
• Filed: 01/27/2006
• Published: 08/02/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 01/27/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Majandro LLC (IP Edge LLC)
• Original Assignee: Xerox Corporation (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Inventors: Roux, Claude, Segond, Frederique
• Granted Patent: US 8,060,357 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/9
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/31 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/332 Query formulation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/211 Syntactic parsing, e.g. based on context-free grammar [CFG] or unification grammars

Abstract

A system for retrieval of text includes a processor which identifies grammar rules associated with text fragments of a text string that is retrieved from an associated storage medium, and retrieves text strings from the storage medium which satisfy the grammar rules. A display displays retrieved text strings. A user input device in communication with the processor enables a user to select text fragments of the displayed text strings for generating a query. The processor identifies grammar rules associated with the user-selected text fragments and retrieves text strings from the storage medium which satisfy the grammar rules.

Claims

1. A system for retrieval of text comprising:

a processor comprising;

instructions for identifying grammar rules associated with text fragments of a user-selected text string, and

instructions for retrieving additional text strings from an associated storage medium which satisfy the grammar rules;

a display for displaying retrieved text strings;

a user input device in communication with the processor which enables a user to select text fragments of a displayed text string for generating a query, the processor identifying grammar rules associated with the user-selected text fragments and retrieving text strings from the storage medium which satisfy the grammar rules.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the grammar rules include a plurality of different types of rules selected from the group consisting of:

lexical rules;

syntactic rules; and

semantic rules.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein text strings in the storage medium are tagged with grammar rules of a plurality of types.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein at least some of the text fragments in a retrieved text string are tagged with a plurality of grammar rules.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor includes instructions for causing the display to display grammar rules associated with a retrieved text string.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the display serves as a graphical user interface whereby a user selects at least one of a plurality of the grammar rules associated with a retrieved text string.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein the graphical user interface enables a user to select fewer than all of the grammar rules associated with a retrieved text string, the processor applying the grammar rules selected by the user to retrieve text strings from the storage medium which satisfy the user-selected grammar rules.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein when a user selects some of the grammar rules, the processor retrieves text strings from the storage medium which satisfy only the user-selected grammar rules.

9. A document extraction and retrieval system comprising:

the system for retrieval of text of claim 1;

a parser which labels the text strings with the grammar rules; and

a database which stores the labeled text strings.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the parser comprises a grammar rule database storing a plurality of grammar rules, the parser being adapted to apply the rules of the plurality of rules to an input text string and label the text string with applicable rules.

11. A method comprising:

generating a query from a selected text string, comprising;

automatically identifying grammar rules associated with user-selected text fragments of the selected text string; and

generating a query for retrieving additional text strings from an associated storage medium which satisfy at least a portion of the identified grammar rules.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the grammar rules include a plurality of rules selected from the group consisting of:

lexical rules;

syntactic rules; and

dependency rules.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the dependency rules include syntactic dependency rules.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the generation of the query comprises generating a query which includes user-selected grammar rules.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the text strings in the database are labeled with tags which identify grammar rules which the text strings satisfy and the method further includes retrieving text strings which satisfy the query.

16. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

labeling text strings with tags corresponding to grammar rules satisfied by the text strings; and

storing the labeled text strings in a storage medium from which text strings which satisfy the query are retrievable.

17. A system for retrieving documents from a database comprising:

a graphical user interface which enables a user to select text fragments of a displayed text string, the displayed string being labeled with tags corresponding to grammatical rules associated with the text fragments, the grammatical rules being selected from a plurality of rules; and

a processor which identifies the grammatical rules associated with the selected text fragments and generates a query for retrieving documents that comprise a text string which satisfies the grammar rules.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the graphical user interface is configured for displaying grammar rules associated with user-selected text fragments, whereby a user selects those grammar rules which express a query.

19. The system of claim 17, wherein the graphical user interface includes a screen and a user input and wherein the processor displays the grammar rules associated with user-selected text fragments on the screen in response to a user input request for the grammar rules to be displayed.

20. A computer program product for use in a computer system for generating a query, the computer program product comprising a computer readable medium having a computer readable program code thereon, the computer readable program code causing the computer system to identify tags associated with text fragments of an input text string and to generate a query based on the tags of user selected text fragments of the input text string, the tags including grammar rules which are applicable to the text fragments of the text string.