PROVIDING ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS INCLUDING ASSEMBLING ANSWERS FROM MULTIPLE DOCUMENT SEGMENTS

摘要

A method, system and computer program product for generating answers to questions. In one embodiment, the method comprises receiving an input query, identifying a plurality of candidate answers to the query; and for at least one of these candidate answers, identifying at least one proof of the answer. This proof includes a series of premises, and a multitude of documents are identified that include references to the premises. A set of these documents is selected that include references to all of the premises. This set of documents is used to generate one or more scores for the one of the candidate answers. A defined procedure is applied to the candidate answers to determine a ranking for the answers, and this includes using the one or more scores for the at least one of the candidate answers in the defined procedure to determine the ranking for this one candidate answer.