Lexical semantic structure

A lexical semantic system for modeling and interpreting semantics of a natural language input comprising:

• a set of categories chosen to model content of the natural language input based on cross-linguistic behavior that represents variations of syntactic structure across different languages, the set of categories being stored at a processor readable storage medium of a computing system, the set of categories defining structural elements of a sentence and including syntactic categories defining types of speech having noun, modifier, and verb classes, the set of categories further including semantic roles to define a function of a particular syntactic category within a particular utterance of the natural language input, each semantic role representing an argument or modifier across a range of the noun, and verb classes and the set of categories further including a mapping between each syntactic category and each semantic role;
• and
• a computer processor performing a method by normalizing content of the natural language input so it can be associated with one or more categories of the set of categories in multiple different languages, the method comprising:
• following a set of rules to apply a collection of procedures, executed by the processor, to the natural language input to identify arguments of classes of syntactic categories in the natural language input;
• and
• associating each identified argument to at least one category from the set of categories to produce a lexical structure;
• normalizing the lexical structure representing the natural language input across a plurality of different languages, so it has a structure that is independent of a given one of the plurality of different languages and independent of any particular software application of a plurality of different software applications;
• mapping the lexical structure to a linguistic object model to obtain an object that represents a possible semantic interpretation of the natural language input;
• and
• outputting the object for instantiation in an application.

A lexical semantic structure system for representing and interpreting semantics of a natural language input comprising:

• an inventory of lexical semantic categories including structural elements of a sentence, the structural elements including types of speech having noun, modifier, and verb classes, and including syntactic categories and semantic roles, the inventory representing content of the natural language input independent of any particular one of a plurality of different languages, the syntactic categories representing nouns, verbs, and modifiers, the semantic roles defining a function of a particular syntactic category within a particular natural language utterance and a mapping between the semantic roles and syntactic categories, each semantic role representing an argument or modifier across a range of noun, and verb classes;
• and
• a computer processor performing a method associating content of the natural language input to the inventory, the method comprising:
• executing rules with the processor to identify arguments of classes of syntactic categories in the natural language input and to associate the identified arguments to the semantic roles of the lexical semantic categories;
• normalizing the identified associated arguments with the lexical semantic roles to obtain a normalized structure that is normalized across a plurality of different analysis engines so it has a structure that is independent of the plurality of different analysis engines;
• executing logic with an analysis engine implemented by the processor to apply the normalized structure to a linguistic object model to obtain a linguistic object;
• and
• outputting the linguistic object for instantiation to obtain a semantic interpretation of the natural language input.