Generic interactive natural language interface to databases (GINLIDB)

To override the complexity of SQL, and to facilitate the manipulation of data in databases for common people (not SQL professionals), many researches have turned out to use natural language instead of SQL. The idea of using natural language instead of SQL has prompted the development of new type of processing method called Natural Language Interface to Database systems (NLIDB). The NLIDB system is actually a branch of more comprehensive method called Natural Language Processing (NLP). In general, the main objective of NLP research is to create an easy and friendly environment to interact with computers in the sense that computer usage does not require any programming language skills to access the data; only natural language (i.e. English) is required. Many systems have been developed to use the concept of NLP in different varieties of domains, for example the system LUNAR [19] and the system LADDER [8]. One drawback of previous systems is that the grammar must be tailor-made for each given database. Another drawback is that many NLP systems cover only a small domain of the English language questions. In this paper we present the design and implementation of a natural language interface to a database system. The system is called Generic Interactive Natural Language Interface to Databases (GINLIDB). It is designed by the use of UML and developed using Visual Basic.NET-2005. Our system is generic in nature given the appropriate database and knowledge base. This feature makes our system distinguishable.