Abstract: A method and apparatus for conversion between data representation formats and data including sound and text information are disclosed. Data representation formats include a string of characters in the text format, a digital representation of an acoustic wave form in the sound format, a reference to a data structure containing information about a word in the word format, a tree-like representation of the grammatical structure of the phrase in the phrase format and references to functions, objects and attributes in an underlying data model in the logic format. Software for a computer or a combination of hardware and software may be used as well as word and sound processors.

Abstract: The invention relates to a method and an apparatus for separating processing for language understanding from an application and its functionality. The application for example contains functionality within a provided domain, whereby the domain and its functionality belongs to a speech controlled device such as a car-radio, a car-AC, a CD-player or almost any program controlled device.