Methods and systems for generating and searching a cross-linked keyphrase ontology database

The method of searching a cross-linked keyphrase ontology database comprising the steps of:

• (a) parsing a natural language statement into a structured representation, wherein the structured representation comprises at least one keyphrase;
• (b) searching the cross-inked keyphrase ontology database for at least one object node, wherein the object node is cross-linked to a keyphrase node representing a second keyphrase, wherein the second keyphrase matches the keyphrase parsed in step (a);
• and
• (c) defining a search result as a retrievable object, wherein the retrievable object is represented by the object node.

A method of disambiguating a syntactically ambiguous natural language statement comprising the steps of:

• (a) parsing the syntactically ambiguous natural language statement into at least two structured representations, wherein the first structured representation comprises at least one first keyphrase and the second structured representation comprises at least one second keyphrase;
• (b) searching a cross-linked keyphrase ontology database for a keyphrase node representing a third keyphrase, wherein the third keyphrase matches the first keyphrase or the second keyphrase;
• (c) if the first keyphrase matches the third keyphrase and the second keyphrase does not match the third keyphrase, designating the first structured representation as a first disambiguated statement interpretation;
• (d) if the second keyphrase matches the third keyphrase and the first keyphrase does not match the third keyphrase, designating the second structured representation as a second disambiguated statement interpretation;
• and
• (e) if the first keyphrase matches the third keyphrase and the second keyphrase matches the third keyphrase or the first keyphrase does not match the third keyphrase and the second keyphrase does not match the third keyphrase, determining that the syntactically ambiguous natural language statement cannot be disambiguated.