XML Retrieval with a Natural Language Interface

Effective information retrieval in XML documents requires the user to have good knowledge of document structure and of some formal query language. XML query languages like XPath and XQuery are too complex to be considered for use by end users. We present an approach to XML query processing that supports the specification of both textual and structural constraints in natural language. We implemented a system that supports the evaluation of both formal XPath-like queries and natural language XML queries. We present comparative test results that were performed with the INEX 2004 topics and XML collection. Our results quantify the trade-off in performance of natural language XML queries vs formal queries with favourable results.

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