The question response device, being the question response device which outputs the information of the reply which shows the reply

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To enable a user to smoothly acquire a suitable answer to a question.;SOLUTION: The question answering device is provided with: a question analysis part for analyzing the attribute of an answer requested by a question indicated by question information and extracting a retrieval element for retrieving the answer from the question information on the basis of the analyzed attribute; a document retrieval part for retrieving document information including the retrieval element from a document information group; an answer formation part for extracting all answer elements corresponding to the attribute of the answer from the document information and forming answer information by using individual extracted answer elements; and a correspondence processing part for classifying individual answer elements by each prescribed related attribute related to the attribute of the answer and correlating answer elements indicating the same contents out of the classified answer elements to each other. The answer formation part arranges the answer elements by each corresponding answer candidate group in order to form answer information.;COPYRIGHT: (C)2004,JPO&NCIPI