User interface system for permitting natural language interaction with an information retrieval system

• US 4,931,935 A
• Filed: 07/01/1988
• Issued: 06/05/1990
• Est. Priority Date: 07/03/1987
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Ohira, Eiji, Komatsu, Akio
• Primary Examiner(s): Fleming, Michael R.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Hayes, Gail O.
• Application Number:
  US07/214,483
• Time in Patent Office: 704 Days
• Field of Search: 364/419, 364/200, 364/900
• US Class Current: 704/8
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/90324 using system suggestions
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/211 Syntactic parsing, e.g. based on context-free grammar [CFG] or unification grammars
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/274 Converting codes to words; Guess-ahead of partial word inputs
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/30 Semantic analysis

Abstract

A user interface system for information retrieval which includes apparatus for sequentially effecting syntactic and semantic analysis, every time a retrieval request sentence is inputted on words and clauses of the request sentence, apparatus inputted for creating partial syntactic and semantic expressions from successively obtained results of the syntactic and semantic analysis, apparatus for predicting words or clauses which are to be next inputted as the retrieval request sentence by making use of a semantic relation between the syntactic and semantic expression and an associated task, apparatus for displaying candidates for the predicted clauses, and apparatus for taking in selected clauses as subsequent clauses of the retrieval request sentence by and permitting a user to select at least one of the displayed candidates.

Claims

1. In a variety of systems for information retrieval where natural language is inputted by inputting means, a user interface system for information retrieval, comprising:

means for sequentially effecting syntactic and semantic analysis, every time a retrieval request sentence is inputted, on words and clauses of said retrieval request sentence;

means for creating partial syntactical and semantic expressions from successively obtained results of said syntactic and semantic analysis;

means for predicting words or clauses which are to be next inputted as said retrieval request sentence by making use of a semantic relation between a syntactic and semantic expression and an associated task;

means for displaying candidates for said predicted words or clauses; and

means for taking in selected words or clauses as subsequent words or clauses of said retrieval request sentence and permitting a user to select at least one of said displayed candidates.

2. The user interface system for information retrieval according to claim 1, wherein said semantic relation is indicated by forming a semantic network having links indicating semantic relations between concepts and attribute relations between concepts.

3. The user interface system for information retrieval according to claim 1, wherein said means for displaying includes means for multi-window displaying of said candidates.

4. The user interface system for information retrieval according to claim 3, wherein said multi-window displaying means includes means for selecting from said candidates by mouse, keyboard or input of predetermined speech.