INFERRING LEXICAL ANSWER TYPES OF QUESTIONS FROM CONTEXT

摘要

A method, system and computer program product are disclosed for searching for an inferred lexical answer type from the context of a question. One embodiment comprises determining from a question an original lexical answer type (LAT), extracting the context in which said original LAT occurs within the question, and identifying a set of context fragments from said context. This embodiment further comprises using the set of context fragments to search through a defined database to produce a search result including a plurality of text strings having a specified relationship with said context fragments, and processing said search result to search for one or more inferred LAT of the question. In one embodiment, the processing includes extracting a plurality of LATs from the text strings in the search result, and selecting one or more of the extracted LATs as the one or more inferred LAT of the question.