Semantic Search Via Role Labeling

• US 20090204605A1
• Filed: 02/02/2009
• Published: 08/13/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 02/07/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NEC Corporation
• Original Assignee: NEC Laboratories America Inc (NEC Corporation)
• Inventors: Bai, Bing, Weston, Jason, Collobert, Ronan
• Granted Patent: US 8,392,436 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3329 Natural language query formulation or dialogue systems

Abstract

A method and system for searching for information contained in a database of documents each includes an offline part and an online part. The offline part includes predicting, in a first computer process, semantic data for sentences of the documents contained in the database and storing this data in a database. The online part includes querying the database for information with a semantically-sensitive query, predicting, in a real time computer process, semantic data for the query, and determining, in a second computer process, a matching score against all the documents in the database, which incorporates the semantic data for the sentences and the query.

Claims

1. A method for searching for information contained in a database of documents, the method comprising the steps of:

predicting, in a first computer process, semantic data for sentences of the documents contained in the database;

querying the database for information with a semantically-sensitive query;

predicting, in a real time computer process, semantic data for the query; and

determining, in a second computer process, a matching score against all the documents in the database, which incorporates the semantic data for the sentences and the query.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of predicting semantic data for sentences of the documents is performed offline.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of storing the semantic data for the sentences of the documents and word data necessary for indexing in a database.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of predicting semantic data for sentences of the documents comprises the steps of:

separating each of the documents into discrete sentences; and

predicting part-of speech tags and/or semantic role tags for each of the sentences.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the step predicting semantic data for sentences of the documents further comprises the step of:

indexing the sentences and their part-of speech tags and/or semantic role tags; and

storing the indexed sentences and their part-of speech tags and/or semantic role tags in a database.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of predicting semantic data for the query comprises the steps of:

predicting part-of speech tags and/or semantic role tags for the query.

7. A system for searching for information contained in a database of documents, the system comprising:

a central processing unit; and

a memory communicating with the central processing unit, the memory comprising instructions executable by the processor for;

predicting, in a first computer process, semantic data for sentences of the documents contained in the database;

querying the database for information with a semantically-sensitive query;

predicting, in a real time computer process, semantic data for the query; and

determining, in a second computer process, a matching score against all the documents in the database, which incorporates the semantic data for the sentences and the query.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the step of predicting semantic data for sentences of the documents is performed offline.

9. The system of claim 7, further comprising the step of storing the semantic data for the sentences of the documents and word data necessary for indexing in a database.

10. The system of claim 7, wherein the step of predicting semantic data for sentences of the documents comprises the steps of:

separating each of the documents into discrete sentences; and

predicting part-of speech tags and/or semantic role tags for each of the sentences.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the step predicting semantic data for sentences of the documents further comprises the step of:

indexing the sentences and their part-of speech tags and/or semantic role tags; and

storing the indexed sentences and their part-of speech tags and/or semantic role tags in a database.

12. The system of claim 7, wherein the step of predicting semantic data for the query comprises the steps of:

predicting part-of speech tags and/or semantic role tags for the query.