Systems and methods for generating a contextually and conversationally correct response to a query

A system comprising:

• a question/answer processor configured to:
• receive a query from a user terminal, the query including a question having a linguistic and syntactic structure;
• analyze the linguistic and syntactic structure of the question to determine at least a context of the question;
• and
• pre-process the received question prior to analyzing the linguistic and syntactic structure of the question, wherein pre-processing includes determining whether the question is of a type that can be answered by a headnote;
• a query generator configured to:
• generate at least one search query based on the analyzing the linguistic and syntactic structure of the question;
• cause the at least one search query to be executed on at least one data store;
• and
• obtain a plurality of candidate answers in response to the execution of the search query, wherein each candidate answer of the plurality of candidate answers is a headnote, wherein the question/answer processor is further configured to obtain a linguistic and syntactic analysis of each candidate answer of the plurality of candidate answers, and to pair the question with each candidate answer of the plurality of candidate answers to form a plurality of question-answer pairs;
• a feature extractor configured to:
• extract at least one feature for each question-answer pair of the plurality of question-answer pairs;
• and
• feed the extracted at least one feature for each question-answer pair into a candidate ranker;
• the candidate ranker configured to:
• score, using a ranking model, for each feature of the at least one feature, each question-answer pair, wherein a score for a particular question-answer pair resulting from the scoring represents a probability that the particular candidate answer of the particular question-answer pair is a correct answer to the question;
• and
• rank the candidate answers of the plurality of candidate answers based on the score of each candidate answer;
• and
• an answer detector configured to provide at least one of the ranked candidate answers as answer to the question in the query.

A computer-based tool including non-transitory computer readable media having stored thereon computer code which, when executed by a processor, causes a computing device to perform operations comprising:

• receiving a query from a user terminal, the query including a question having a linguistic and syntactic structure;
• analyzing the linguistic and syntactic structure of the question to determine at least a context of the question;
• pre-processing the received question prior to the analyzing, wherein the pre-processing includes determining whether the question is of a type that can be answered by a headnote,
• generating at least one search query based on the analyzing the linguistic and syntactic structure of the question;
• causing the at least one search query to be executed on at least one data store;
• obtaining a plurality of candidate answers in response to the execution of the search query, wherein each candidate answer of the plurality of candidate answers is a headnote;
• obtaining a linguistic and syntactic analysis of each candidate answer of the plurality of candidate answers, wherein the question is paired with each candidate answer of the plurality of candidate answers to form a plurality of question-answer pairs;
• extracting at least one feature for each question-answer pair of the plurality of question-answer pairs;
• feeding the extracted at least one feature for each question-answer pair into a ranking model;
• scoring, by the ranking model, for each feature of the at least one feature, each question-answer pair, wherein a score for a particular question-answer pair resulting from the scoring represents a probability that the particular candidate answer of the particular question-answer pair is a correct answer to the question;
• ranking the candidate answers of the plurality of candidate answers based on the score of each candidate answer;
• and
• providing at least one of the ranked candidate answers as answer to the question in the query.