Method of finding answers to questions

A system for automatically finding one or more answers to a natural language question in a computer stored natural language text database, comprising:

• storage means comprising said natural language text database which has been analyzed with respect to syntactic functions of constituents, lexical meaning of word tokens, and clause boundaries;
• analyzing means for analyzing a computer readable representation of question clause of a natural language question with respect to syntactic functions of its constituents and lexical meaning of its word tokens;
• defining means, operatively connected to said analyzing means, for defining, in response to an analysis performed by the analyzing means, a set of conditions for a clause in said natural language text database to constitute an answer to said question clause, said conditions comprising a condition stipulating that, for a clause in said natural language text database to constitute an answer to said question clause, at least one of the constituents of said question clause should have a corresponding constituent in said clause having the same syntactic function and an equivalent lexical meaning;
• and
• answer finding means, operatively connected to said storage means and said defining means, for identifying in said natural language text database clauses that satisfy said conditions and for returning answers to said question clause by means of said clauses that satisfy said conditions.