Pre-processing a table in a document for natural language processing

A system for natural language processing (NLP) of a document including a table, comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program instructions executed by a processor to perform operations, the operations comprising:
• generating a graphical user interface (GUI) providing a representation of table items in a table in a document including a set of a main element comprising an entity whose value is to be extracted, a conditional element that refines the entity, and a value element comprising a value for the entity;
• rendering, in the GUI, graphical controls to enable a user to select an element from the table to be the main element, the conditional element, and the value element;
• updating the set of the main element, the conditional element, and the value element with the user selected element to be one of the main element, the conditional element, and the value element to form a modified set;
• providing the modified set of the main element, the conditional element, and the value element to an NLP engine to perform natural language processing of the document including the table, using the modified set of the main element, the conditional element, and the value element to interpret the table;
• rendering, in the GUI, graphical controls to enable a user to select a lexical connector between the main element and one of conditional elements;
• and
• updating the set to include in the updated set the user selected lexical connector.

A computer implemented method for natural language processing (NLP) of a document including a table, comprising:

• generating a graphical user interface (GUI) providing a representation of table items in a table in a document including a set of a main element comprising an entity whose value is to be extracted, a conditional element that refines the entity, and a value element comprising a value for the entity;
• rendering, in the GUI, graphical controls to enable a user to select an element from the table to be the main element, the conditional element, and the value element;
• updating the set of the main element, the conditional element, and the value element with the user selected element to be one of the main element, the conditional element, and the value element to form a modified set;
• providing the modified set of the main element, the conditional element, and the value element to an NLP engine to perform natural language processing of the document including the table, using the modified set of the main element, the conditional element, and the value element to interpret the table;
• rendering, in the GUI, graphical controls to enable a user to select a lexical connector between the main element and one of conditional elements;
• and
• updating the set to include in the updated set the user selected lexical connector.