Databases and Natural Language Interfaces

A Natural Language Interface for Databases allows users of multimedia kiosks to formulate natural language questions. User questions are first translated into a logic language and subsequently into Structured Query Language (SQL), which is processed by a database management system to return the answer. This paper focuses on the translation stage. Special attention is devoted to the conceptual model, a relational database that organizes all the data supporting the translation process. The translation algorithm is presented and commented examples are used to better understand its functioning. Keywords. language engineering, natural language interface for databases, conceptual model, relational database, type hierarchy, translation 1 Motivation One of the main characteristics of multimedia kiosks is their familiar visual appearance, reducing the complexity of communication between man and machine to a minimum. The anthroponomical synchronisation of Image, Video, Audio and Text is one of t...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2000
• Where: JISBD
• Authors: Porfírio P. Filipe, Nuno J. Mamede
• Keywords: JISBD 2000, JISBD 2001, Natural Language, Natural Language Interface, User