Importance

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Abstract

In a digital computing system, the method of and apparatus for storing data representing a natural language sentence segment that includes at least one action (A) and one object (O) of the action, extracting the AO to form an AO extraction, processing the AO extraction pursuant to paraphrasing rules to form a plurality of para-AOs, and using the plurality of para-AOs during subsequent processing steps to be implemented in the digital computing system. One embodiment includes processing a natural language user request processing the AO extraction pursuant to positive and negative paraphrasing rules to form a plurality of para-AOs, and using the plurality of para-AOs as an expanded user request to search for information. An optional feature includes combining the S with each para-AO to form a plurality of para-SAOs as an expanded user request to search for information. The system can also include processing natural language documents, extracting a plurality of subject, action, object triplets (SAOs), normalizing the SAOs into SAO structures and storing the SAO structures in an SAO knowledge base. The system can employ the above mentioned paraphrasing rules for grouping a plurality of the SAOs that include various subjects (S.sub.1, S.sub.2, . . . S.sub.n) each of which is associated with an AO (A.sub.1O.sub.1, A.sub.2O.sub.2, . . . A.sub.3O.sub.3) wherein A.sub.1O.sub.1, . . . A.sub.2O.sub.2, . . . A.sub.3O.sub.3 have a common meaning. Thus, a single user request SAO or AO can cause display of a plurality of grouped SAOs to increase the power of the search.

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First Claim