Method of conjoining clauses during unification using opaque clauses
AssigneeXerox Corporation
InventorsJohn T. Maxwell, III, Ronald M. Kaplan
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method of using a processor to conjoin a first clause and a second clause as part of a unification of a first graph. If the first clause is not associated with the first graph, then a third clause is created that is opaque and has a pointer to the first clause. Afterward, the third clause is conjoined with the second clause.
Claims4
A method of using a processor in a natural language processing system to selectively conjoin a first clause and a second clause as part of a unification of a first graph data structure, the processor implementing the method by executing instructions stored in a memory, the method comprising the steps of:
- a) determining if a first clause data structure representative of the first clause is included within the first graph data structure,
- b) if the first clause data structure is not included within the first graph data structure, then
- 1) creating a third clause data structure, the third clause data structure having a pointer to the first clause data structure, the third clause data structure being opaque;
- and
- 2) if a second clause data structure representative of the second clause is included within the first graph data structure, conjoining the third clause data structure with the second clause data structure within the first graph data structure.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.