Method and system for analyzing various languages and constructing language-independent semantic structures

A method of analyzing a sentence in a source language, comprising:

• performing a lexical analysis of the sentence in the source language;
• performing a lexical-morphological analysis on each element of the sentence and building a lexical-morphological structure for the whole sentence;
• performing a rough syntactic analysis on the lexical-morphological structure comprising:
• generating all possible constituents for each element of the lexical-morphological structure;
• generalizing the constituents to form a set of generalized constituents;
• and
• generating a graph of the generalized constituents to describe all possible syntactic structures of the whole sentence, comprising:
• for each generalized constituent having a lexical meaning and grammatical value which corresponds to a connection in the lexical-morphological structure:
• initializing a surface model for the generalized constituent;
• attempting to attach other constituents in surface slots of the syntforms of the surface model right and left neighboring constituents;
• and
• establishing non-tree links on the graph of the generalized constituents;
• performing a precise syntactic analysis on the graph of the generalized constituents, wherein the precise syntactic analysis includes:
• rating the graph of the precise constituents based on a plurality of rating scores independently obtained and calculated, including a rating score for one or more lexical meanings for each element of the sentence, a rating score for one or more syntactic constructions for each element of the sentence, a rating score for a degree of correspondence of the precise constituents to their semantic descriptions, and a rating score for the linear order of the constituents;
• using the rating scores to generate hypotheses about the overall syntactic structure of the sentence;
• and
• selecting one or more best hypotheses about the overall syntactic structure of the sentence with the highest rating score from the hypotheses generated;
• generating a graph of precise constituents, the graph of precise constituents being an intermediate re resentation between the graph of the generalized constituents and one or more syntactic trees;
• generating one or more syntactic trees from the graph of the precise constituents;
• selecting a syntactic structure for the sentence from the one or more syntactic trees;
• performing a semantic analysis on the selected syntactic structure of the sentence;
• and
• generating a language-independent semantic structure for the sentence of the language based at least in part on the semantic analysis of the selected syntactic structure.

A computer readable medium comprising instructions for causing a computing system to carry out steps comprising:

• performing a lexical analysis of the sentence in the source language;
• performing a lexical-morphological analysis on the each element of the sentence and building a lexical-morphological structure for the whole sentence;
• performing a rough syntactic analysis on the lexical-morphological structure of the sentence comprising:
• generating all possible constituents for each element of the lexical-morphological structure;
• generalizing the constituents to form a set of generalized constituents;
• and
• generating a graph of the generalized constituents to describe all possible syntactic structures of the whole sentence, comprising:
• for each generalized constituent having a lexical meaning and grammatical value which corresponds to a connection in the lexical-morphological structure:
• initializing a surface model for the generalized constituent;
• attempting to attach other constituents in surface slots of the syntforms of the surface model right and left neighboring constituents;
• and
• establishing non-tree links on the graph of the generalized constituents;
• performing a precise syntactic analysis to produce one or more syntactic structures for the sentence from the graph of the generalized constituents;
• performing a semantic analysis on the syntactic structures of the sentence and generating a language-independent semantic structure for the sentence.

A computer system adapted to analyze a sentence of a language, comprising:

• a lexical-morphological analyzer adapted to perform a lexical analysis and a lexical-morphological analysis on each element of the sentence and generate a lexical-morphological structure of the sentence;
• a rough syntactic analyzer adapted to perform a rough syntactic analysis on the lexical-morphological structure of the sentence comprising:
• generating all possible constituents for each element of the lexical-morphological structure;
• generalizing the constituents to form a set of generalized constituents;
• and
• generating a graph of the generalized constituents to describe all possible syntactic structures of the whole sentence, comprising:
• for each generalized constituent having a lexical meaning and grammatical value which corresponds to a connection in the lexical-morphological structure:
• initializing a surface model for the generalized constituent;
• attempting to attach other constituents in surface slots of the syntforms of the surface model right and left neighboring constituents;
• and
• establishing non-tree links on the graph of the generalized constituents;
• a precise syntactic analyzer adapted to perform a precise syntactic analysis on the graph of the generalized constituents and generate a syntactic structure of the sentence from the graph of the generalized constituents, wherein the precise syntactic analysis includes:
• rating the graph of the precise constituents based on a plurality of rating scores inde endentl obtained and calculated including a ratin score for one or more lexical meanings for each element of the sentence, a rating score for one or more syntactic constructions for each element of the sentence, a rating score for a degree of correspondence of the precise constituents to their semantic descriptions, and a rating score for the linear order of the constituents;
• using the rating scores to generate hypotheses about the overall syntactic structure of the sentence;
• and
• selecting one or more hypotheses about the overall syntactic structure of the sentence with the highest rating score from the hypotheses generated;
• and
• a semantic analyzer adapted to perform a semantic analysis on the syntactic structure of the sentence and generate a language-independent semantic structure for the sentence of the language.