A SYSTEM, SOFTWARE AND METHOD FOR LOCATING INFORMATION IN A COLLECTION OF TEXT-BASED INFORMATION SOURCES

摘要

A system for processing information contained in a collection of text-basedinformation sources employs associative and linguistic expansion of inputwords in which associative expansion is first performed, followed bysimultaneous linguistic expansion in accordance with related morphological andphonetic rules. The system automatically generates and updates a linguisticknowledge base for each language to be processed by analyzing a large body oftext in each language. The system also automatically indexes the collection oftext-based information sources to be searched. A method is provided to expanda word or term in a supported language using a two-dimensional (2D) expansionmatrix providing great flexibility, high accuracy and low noise output. The 2Dexpansion matrix includes an associative dimension that utilizes thesauri,databses of saved queries and other associated information sources, in whichwords are related to other words by meaning and relations, and a linguisticdimension which utilizes recognition-grammars, in which words are related toother words by combined rules for morphological and phonetic variation.