Abstract: The present invention discloses a computer-implemented method to understand queries or commands spoken by users when they use natural language utterances similar to those that people use spontaneously to communicate. More precisely, the invention discloses a method that identifies user queries or commands from the general information involved in spoken utterances directly by the speech recognition system, and not by a post-process as is conventionally used. In a phase of preparation of the system, a vocabulary of items representing data and semantic identifiers is created as well as a syntax module having valid combinations of items. When the system is in use, a user utterance is first discretized into a plurality of basic speech units which are compared to the items in the vocabulary and a combination of items is selected according to the evaluation from the syntax module in order to generate the most likely sequence of items representative of the user utterance.

Abstract: The present invention discloses a computer-implemented method to understand queries or commands spoken by users when they use natural language utterances similar to those that people use spontaneously to communicate. More precisely, the invention discloses a method that identifies user queries or commands from the general information involved in spoken utterances directly by the speech recognition system, and not by a post-process as is conventionally used. In a phase of preparation of the system, a vocabulary of items representing data and semantic identifiers is created as well as a syntax module having valid combinations of items. When the system is in use, a user utterance is first discretized into a plurality of basic speech units which are compared to the items in the vocabulary and a combination of items is selected according to the evaluation from the syntax module in order to generate the most likely sequence of items representative of the user utterance.