Abstract: A method and a system for automatically finding one or more answers to a natural language question in a computer stored natural language text database is disclosed. The natural language text database has been analyzed with respect to syntactic functions of constituents, lexical meaning of word tokens and clause boundaries, and the natural language question comprises a question clause. A computer readable representation of the question clause is analyzed with respect to syntactic functions of its constituents and the lexical meaning of its word tokens. In response to the analysis a set of conditions for a clause in the natural language text database to constitute an answer to the question clause is defined. The conditions relate to the syntactic functions of constituents and the lexical meaning of word tokens in the clause.

Abstract: A method, a system and a computer program for extracting information from a natural language text corpus based on a natural language query are disclosed. The natural language text corpus is indexed and stored. A natural language query is analyzed with respect to phrases, phrase types, syntactic roles, word tokens of phrases, and lexical meaning of word tokens. One or more surface variants are created for at least one phrase of the natural language query. The one or more surface variants each have the same phrase type as the at least one phrase of the natural language query, and each comprise a word token which is a lexical head and has the same lexical meaning as a word token which is a lexical head of the at least one phrase of the natural language query. The one or more surface variants and the at least one phrase of the natural language query are compared with the indexed and stored natural language text corpus.

Abstract: A method and a system for automatically finding one or more answers to a natural language question in a computer stored natural language text database is disclosed. The natural language text database has been analyzed with respect to syntactic functions of constituents, lexical meaning of word tokens and clause boundaries, and the natural language question comprises a question clause. A computer readable representation of the question clause is analyzed with respect to syntactic functions of its constituents and the lexical meaning of its word tokens. In response to the analysis a set of conditions for a clause in the natural language text database to constitute an answer to the question clause is defined. The conditions relate to the syntactic functions of constituents and the lexical meaning of word tokens in the clause.

Abstract: A computerized method, and a corresponding apparatus, for segmentation of a stream of text elements comprising analyzed tokens into one or more initial clauses is disclosed. In the method, a predetermined number of consecutive text elements of said stream of text elements are scanned, starting from a given position. The predetermined number of consecutive text elements are compared with each pattern of a set of patterns for beginnings of initial clauses, and a beginning of an initial clause is identified in the predetermined number of consecutive text elements, if the predetermined number of consecutive text elements match one pattern of the set of patterns for beginnings of initial clauses. The given position is then moved at least one position forward and the scanning, comparison and identification is repeated.

Abstract: A method for automatic determination whether a word type is a solid compound word is disclosed. In the method a word type is looked up in an electronically stored list of known word types. The list comprises an indication for each known word type of whether or not it is a known solid compound word. If the word type is found in the electronically stored list of known word types, it is determined whether the word type is a known solid compound word or not in accordance with the indication in the electronically stored list of known word types. If the word type is not found in the electronically stored list of known word types, the word type is divided into a prefix and a suffix. The prefix is looked up in an electronically stored list of known prefixes of solid compound words of a word class and the suffix is looked up in an electronically stored list of known suffixes of solid compound words of said word class. These look-ups are done for all possible divisions of the word type.

Abstract: A method and a system for automatically finding one or more answers to a natural language question in a computer stored natural language text database is disclosed. The natural language text database has been analyzed with respect to syntactic functions of constituents, lexical meaning of word tokens and clause boundaries, and the natural language question comprises a question clause. A computer readable representation of the question clause is analyzed with respect to syntactic functions of its constituents and the lexical meaning of its word tokens. In response to the analysis a set of conditions for a clause in the natural language text database to constitute an answer to the question clause is defined. The conditions relate to the syntactic functions of constituents and the lexical meaning of word tokens in the clause.

Abstract: A method is disclosed for automatically distinguishing significant from insignificant variants of upper and lower case in a number of input word types by means of a computer. According to the method an input word type is assigned to one of a number of disjoint local groups based on the case, and position, of the letters that make up the input word type. Furthermore, the input word type is assigned to one of a number of disjoint global groups based on which local groups case variants of the input word type are assigned to. Finally the cases of the input word type are normalized in accordance with predetermined rules associated with the global group the input word type is assigned to.