Multilingual Retrieval Interface for Structured Data on the Web

Dana Dannells, Ramona Enache, Mariana Damova

NLIWoD - ISWC’2014

Semantic Data Infrastructures

Leonardo Mona Lisa

RDF Repository

SPARQL

:Painter :Painting

:painted

Mona Lisa ?

rdf:typ

e

rdf:

typ

e

• Semantic Web • Linked data • SPARQL query language

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Natural Interface through NL

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EN FR DE

Who painted Mona Lisa? Qui a paint Mona Lisa? Wer hat Mona Lisa gemahlt?

Who is Mona Lisa’s painter? Qui est le paintre de Mona Lisa? Wer ist der Mahler von Mona Lisa ?

Who created Mona Lisa? Qui a créé Mona Lisa? Wer hat Mona Lisa geschöpft?

Leonardo da Vinci A:

Q:

NL to ontology interoperability

Multilingual Retrieval Interface

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GF – Grammar Framework

• Type-theoretical grammar formalism supporting multilingual applications

• Two-layered architecture

– Abstract syntax - semantics

– Concrete syntax – language dependent surface structure

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Abstract syntax: Concrete English syntax: Abstract representation: cat NP, VP, S; lincat NP, VP, S = {s: Str}; lin Mary = mkNP (mkPN "Mary"); fun Mary, John: NP; lin Mary = {s = "Mary"}; lin John = mkNP (mkPN "John"); fun Love: NP -> VP; lin John = {s = "John"}; lin Love o = mkVP (mkV2 "love") o; fun Pred : NP -> VP -> S; lin Love o = {s = "loves" ++ o.s}; lin Pred sub v = mkS (mkCl sub v); lin Pred sub v = {s = sub.s ++ v.s};

Ex: John loves Mary

Multilingual Aspect of GF

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YAQL (Yet Another Query language)

• A common architecture with one base module and domain knowledge representation

• Straightforward abstract syntax generation from ontology with just the minimum lexical types – Common noun – Kind

– Noun phrase – Entity

– Verb phrase – Property

– Verb phrase with higher arity – Relation

• Reusable generic grammar structure

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Abstract syntax: Concrete syntax: Move ; Move = Utt ; Query ; Query = QS ; MQuery : Query -> Move ;

Query Command Answer

YAQL and the Semantic Web

The category Kind gets coupled with OWL entities

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• Yet another NL two layers so that a new domain model can be easily integrated into the query module • Bidirectional translation in 15 languages (Bulgarian, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, Hebrew, Italian, German, Norwegian, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish)

Text Query Answer

Data

Lexicon

RGL

YAQL

NL to SPARQL

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Who painted Mona Lisa?

English: Who painted t ?

QPainter t = mkQS pastTense (mkQCl who\_IP paint\_V2 t)

Finnish: Whose painting is t ?}

QPainter t = mkQS (mkQCl (mkIP (E.GenIP who\_IP) (mkN "maalaama")) t)

French: By who is t ?

QPainter t = mkQS (mkQCl (mkIAdv by8agent\_Prep who\_IP) t)

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$MQuery (QPainter (PTitle TMona\_Lisa))$

Abstract syntax

SPARQL

MQuery q = "PREFIX painting:<http://spraakbanken.gu.se/rdf/owl/painting.owl#> PREFIX rdf:<http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#> PREFIX rdfs:<http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#>> SELECT distinct"++ q.wh1 ++ " WHERE { ?painting rdf:type painting:Painting; rdfs:label ?title; " ++ q.wh2 ++ q.prop++"}" ;

Concrete syntax

Evaluation

• User satisfaction

• Efficiency in terms of time, effort and cost

• Effectiveness, how the system scales up

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Coverage: 1159 query patterns in 15 languages 10 characteristics of CH objects Extendibility New query grammar - 150 lines of code Evaluation Random queries in 7 languages with very few native informants’ corrections

Conclusion

• NL to ontology interoperability approach

• Multilingual interface for retrieval of structured data from the Web

• Easily extendable initial base of YAQL transformations

• Great coverage of paraphrases

• Expert language/information engineers required

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Thank you for your attention

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Contacts: dana.dannells@svenska.gu.se ra.monique@gmail.com mariana.damova@mozajka.co

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