Method and system for processing natural language

• US 5,321,608 A
• Filed: 11/27/1991
• Issued: 06/14/1994
• Est. Priority Date: 11/30/1990
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Hirai, Akihiro, Namba, Yasuhara, Kinukawa, Hiroshi
• Primary Examiner(s): McElheny, Jr., Donald E.
• Application Number:
  US07/799,562
• Time in Patent Office: 930 Days
• Field of Search: 364/419, 364/275, 364/419.08
• US Class Current: 704/9
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/253 Grammatical analysis; Style critique
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/35 Discourse or dialogue representation

Abstract

The invention is featured in that the natural language process can be made in a way that a chained functions structure expressing relationships among concepts of elements of the natural language constructing the character strings is generated, a rule table which stores in advance rules of association relationship between the chained functions structure and form of a command language which the processor system can execute is looked up, the generated chained functions structure is converted to a form which the process can be executed, and the command language are obtained as results of the analysis by incorporating the information as to the operating statuses of the processor system into the converted form. The invention enables the computer to operate in a desired mode with input of usual natural language without use of any of the formal languages usually given to the computer (special languages and command defined for the computer).

Claims

1. A natural language processing method in a processor system having a database, an input device and an output device, comprising:

a step of entering character strings of a natural language from the input device;

a step of analyzing meanings of the entered character strings with use of a meaning label for defining an operation object, said meaning label being included i said entered character strings;

a step of updating operating status data for instantiation to a command language, based upon an operating status of at least one of position and content of current data of said processor system, related to said meaning label; and

a step of instantiating the command language, based upon results of performing the analyzing step and the operating status data updated in said updating step.

2. The natural language processing method according to claim 1, wherein the analyzing step comprises:

a step of generating a chained functions structure expressing relationships among concepts of elements of the natural language of the entered character strings;

A step of looking up a rule table which stores, in advance, rules of association relationship between a chained functions structure and a form of a command language which the processor system can execute; and

a step of converting on the basis of results of performing the looking up step the generated chained functions structure to a form which the process can be executed.

3. The natural language processing method according to claim 2, wherein the step of instantiating a command language comprises:

a step of extracting partial structures from the chained functions structure according to a command language; and

a step of instantiating the command language for each of the extracted partial structures.

4. The natural language processing method according to claim 2, further comprising:

a step of reconstructing the chained functions structure; and

,

a step of obtaining the command language according to the reconstructed chained functions structure.

5. The natural language processing method according to claim 2, further comprising storing the operating status data of the processor system in a storage of the processor system in advance.

6. The natural language processing method according to claim 5, further comprising storing the operating status data of the processor system in the storage according to results of execution of the command language.

7. The natural language processing method according to claim 5, further comprising storing the operating status data of the processor system independent of the step of instantiating the command language executed.

8. The natural language processing method according to claim 5, further comprising storing the operating status data of the processor system in the storage as a correspondent relationship between a position of the information as to the operating status data of the processor system and the concepts of the elements of the natural language.

9. The natural language processing method according to claim 8, further comprising using the concepts of the elements of the natural language containing at least one of pronouns, demonstrative, and words for indication of any extensions of the concepts of the natural language.

10. The natural language processing method according to claim 8, further comprising providing the position of the operating status data of the processor system indicating a display position of the information, a storing position in the storage, and a storing position in said data base.

11. The natural language processing method according to claim 2, further comprising providing the chained functions structure as a semantic network connecting among nodes of the concepts the elements of the natural language connecting through labeled links with direction, indicating the relationship among the concepts.

12. The natural language processing method according to claim 2, wherein the generating step further comprises:

a step for executing a morphological analysis for dividing any of the character strings into morphemes;

a step of executing disambiguation for limiting a range of the meaning of any of the morphemes divided above;

a step of executing a semantic analysis with use of syntactic information and semantic information of any of the morphemes divided above which are stored in the storage given in the processor system in advance as a dictionary; and

,

a step of generating the chained functions structure from results of the semantic analysis.

13. The natural language processing method according to claim 12, further comprising limiting with the disambiguation an applicable range of the meaning of the morpheme with use of at least one of a position of the morpheme in any of the character string entered above and the syntactic information stored in the dictionary as to the morphemes divided above.

14. The natural language processing method according to claim 12, further comprising selectively executing by the semantic analysis analysis of quotation, deleting undefined words, and analysis of combined expression of numerical values and units for the chained functions structure with use of the syntactic information and the semantic information of the morphemes divided above.

15. The natural language processing method according to claim 12, further comprising selectively executing by the semantic analysis analysis of punctuation, analysis of combined expression of numerical values and comparative expression, analysis of partial negation, analysis of expression of starting and ending points, recovery of elliptic expression of declinable words, recovery of elliptic expression of indeclinable parts of speech, and analysis of logical relation expression.

16. The natural language processing method according to claim 1, further comprising providing the operating status data of the processor system including at least data as to an input history of any of the character strings of natural language entered above, data as to a history of the results of the analysis, and data as to the results of the execution.

17. The natural language processing method according to claim 16, further comprising providing the data as to the results of the execution containing data already output to the output device and data for managing output situation to the output device.

18. The natural language processing method according to claim 17, further comprising providing the data for managing the output situation to the output device containing data as to meanings, display positions, and display form of items indicated on a display.

19. The natural language processing method according to claim 1, further comprising updating said operating status data based upon results of previously executing a command language.

20. A natural language processing method adaptable for use in a processor system having an input device, the method comprising steps of:

entering a character string comprising a material language via the input device;

analyzing the character string using a meaning label defining an operation object, said meaning label being included in the character string and associated with initial operating status data;

updating the initial operating status data to obtain intermediate operating status data based on one of position and content of initial data of the processor system;

updating the intermediate operating status data based on one of the position and the content of intermediate data of the processor system; and

,

instantiating the command language based on the updating and the analyzing.

21. A natural language processing system adaptable for use with a computer comprising:

a storage for storing a dictionary associated with a natural language and operating status data of the computer;

an input device for entering character strings of the natural language;

an output device;

means for analyzing meanings of the entered character strings with use of;

a meaning label for defining an operation object, said meaning label being included in said entered character strings;

means for updating operating status data for instantiation to a command language, based upon an operating status of at least one of position and content of current data of said processor system, related to said meaning label; and

means for instantiating the command language, based upon results of performing the analyzing step and the operating status data updated in said updating step.

22. The natural language processing system according to claim 21, wherein the means for analyzing comprises:

means for generating a chained functions structure expressing relationship among concepts of elements of the natural language of the entered character strings;

means for looking up a rule table which stores in advance, rules of association relationship between a chained functions structure and a form of a command language which the processor system can execute; and

means for converting on the basis of results of operating the looking up means, the generated chained functions structure to a form which the process can be executed.

23. The natural language processing system according to claim 22, wherein the means for instantiating the command language comprises:

means for extracting partial structures from the chained functions structure according to a command language; and

,

means for instantiating the command language for each of the extracted partial structures.

24. The natural language processing system according to claim 21, wherein the operating status data of the processor system is stored in the storage as a correspondent relationship between a position of the information associated with the operating status data of the processor system and the concepts of the elements of the natural language.

25. The natural language processing system according to claim 24, wherein the concepts of the elements of the natural language contain at least one of pronouns, demonstrative, and words used for indication of any of extensions of the concepts of the natural language.

26. The natural language processing system according to claim 24, wherein the position of the operating status data of the processor system indicates a display position of the information, a storing position int he storage, and a storing position in a data base connected with the processor system.

27. The natural language processing system according to claim 21, wherein the operating status data of the processor system includes at least data as to an input history of any of the character strings of natural language entered above, data as to a history of the results of the analysis, and data as to the results of the execution.

28. The natural language processing system according to claim 27, wherein the data as to the results of the execution contains data already output to the output device and data for managing output situation to the output device.

29. The natural language processing system according to claim 28, wherein the data for managing the output situation to the output device contains data as to meanings, display positions, and display of items indicated on a display.

30. The natural language processing system according to claim 21, wherein the computer executes in parallel a series of processes for outputting results of the execution corresponding to the character strings and the process for storing the information as to the operating status of the processor system to the storage with use of the character strings of the natural language from the input device for the computer.