Metafrastes: A News Ontology-Based Information Querying Using Natural Language Processing

This paper presents Metafrastes, a system that provides users with the ability to retrieve information from Semantic Web knowledge bases through queries that are formulated in natural language. The Web system that we introduce is engineered based on several Semantic Web tools and techniques. Our contribution consists mainly of a Natural Language Processing engine, able to translate queries formulated in natural language to SPARQL queries that can be applied to existing knowledge bases. Additionally, we develop a user interface that captures the user interaction with the system. Last, we evaluate the system based on a number of pre-defined queries formulated in natural language. The proposed approach has been positively evaluated with respect to precision and for queries that are aware of the information structure from the knowledge base.

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