Method and system for identifying user issues in forum posts based on discourse analysis

A method for categorizing an issue and outputting information based on the categorization, the method comprising:

• (I) for each of a plurality of categories of issue including an information request category and an anomaly category, providing a discourse model, the discourse models including a request discourse model which applies rules for identifying discourse patterns for identifying information requests in a text sequence and an anomaly discourse model which applies rules for identifying discourse patterns identifying anomalies in the text sequence, the discourse patterns configured for identify text sequences that meet the respective discourse pattern, at least one of the discourse patterns specifying that an instance of a domain term in a domain term vocabulary be present in the text sequence for the discourse pattern to be met;
• (II) receiving an issue comprising a text sequence;
• (III) with a processor, parsing the text sequence with a syntactic parser to:
• (a) identify syntactic dependencies between tokens of the text sequence, the syntactic parser including rules which tag instances of the domain terms in the domain term vocabulary, and
• (b) identify occurrences of syntactic dependencies between words of the text sequence from a predefined set of syntactic dependencies, at least some of the patterns specifying that the domain term be in a syntactic dependency, wherein the syntactic dependencies in the predefined set of syntactic dependencies are identified with rules, the rules including rules for identifying:
• (i) a subject syntactic dependency, which identifies a noun or noun phrase and a verb for which the noun or noun phrase is the subject of that verb in a sentence,
• (ii) an object syntactic dependency, which identifies a noun or noun phrase and a verb for which the noun or noun phrase is the object of that verb in a sentence,
• (iii) a predicate syntactic dependency, which identifies a dependency between a predicate and a noun or noun phrase, and
• (iv) a negation syntactic dependency, which identifies a syntactic relation between a noun or noun phrase and a negative term selected from a set of negative terms;
• (IV) with a processor, applying the discourse patterns, at least some of the discourse patterns requiring a syntactic dependency between a term and one of the domain terms;
• (V) with a processor, categorizing the text sequence based on which of the discourse patterns are met by the text sequence of the received issue;
• and
• VI) outputting information based on the categorization of the text sequence, wherein the outputting information comprises at least one of:
• (a) identifying a process for responding to the issue from a plurality of processes associated with different issue categories,
• (b) identifying a knowledge base from a plurality of knowledge bases for querying based on the categorization of the issue, and
• (c) querying a knowledge base or collection of web posts with the issue, wherein the query is also based on the categorization of the issue.

A system for categorizing issues comprising:

• a domain term vocabulary which includes a plurality of domain terms;
• memory which, for each of a plurality of categories of issue, including an information request category and an anomaly category, stores a discourse model, the discourse models including a request discourse model which applies rules for identifying discourse patterns for identifying information requests in a text sequence and an anomaly discourse model which applies rules for identifying discourse patterns identifying anomalies in the text sequence, the discourse patterns configured for identify text sequences that meet the respective discourse pattern, at least one of the discourse patterns specifying that an instance of one of the domain terms in the domain term vocabulary be present in the text sequence for the pattern to be met;
• a syntactic parser which identifies syntactic dependencies in an issue comprising a text sequence, including:
• (a)identifying syntactic dependencies between tokens of the text sequence, the syntactic parser including rules which tag instances of the domain terms in the domain term vocabulary, and
• (b) identify occurrences of syntactic dependencies between words of the text sequence from a predefined set of syntactic dependencies, at least some of the patterns specifying that the domain term be in a syntactic dependency, wherein the syntactic dependencies in the predefined set of syntactic dependencies are identified with rules, the rules including rules for identifying:
• (i) a subject syntactic dependency, which identifies a noun or noun phrase and a verb for which the noun or noun phrase is the subject of that verb in a sentence,
• (ii) an object syntactic dependency, which identifies a noun or noun phrase and a verb for which the noun or noun phrase is the object of that verb in a sentence,
• (iii) a predicate syntactic dependency, which identifies a dependency between a predicate and a noun or noun phrase, and
• (iv) a negation syntactic dependency, which identifies a syntactic relation between a noun or noun phrase and a negative term selected from a set of negative terms;
• a discourse pattern extraction component which determines which of the discourse patterns are met by the text sequence;
• a categorization component which categorizes the text sequence based on the discourse patterns which are met;
• and
• an output component which outputs information based on the categorization of the text sequence, wherein the output component is configured for:
• identifying a process for responding to the issue from a plurality of processes associated with different issue categories;
• identifying a knowledge base from a plurality of knowledge bases for querying based on the categorization of the issue;
• and
• querying a knowledge base or collection of web posts with the issue, wherein the query is also based on the categorization of the issue.