Natural Language Interfaces to Databases

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Natural Language Interfaces to Databases

• Meikiu Lo
• Gwen Ray
• October 29, 2003

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I. What is Natural Language Database Interface?

• allows users to access information stored in a
  database by formulating request in Natural
  Language.
• Examples
• Who is the youngest employee in the sales
  department?
• Does any employee in the sales department
  earn more than 35000?

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Two Components

• Linguistic component
• translates Natural Language input into a formal
  query and generating a natural language response
  based on the results from the database search.
• Database component
• Performs traditional database management functions

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Simple Diagram of NLDBIS
Natural Language Input

• Linguistic Component
• Natural Language Understanding
• (morphological analysis, syntactic analysis,
  semantic analysis, discourse analysis)
• Natural Language Generation

Transfer to Database Language
Database Component
Response
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Linguistic component

• Includes
• Natural Language Understanding
• Mapping the given input in the natural language
  into a useful representation.
• Natural Language Generation
• Producing output in the natural language from
  some internal representation.

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II. What is it related to, or what will affect?

• companies are now making their product databases
  available online with a multitude of user
  interfaces.
• their accessibility to no-expert users is
  desirable.

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III. Why use Natural Language Interface to
Database?

• Widespread use of Database
• Accurate retrieval

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IV. What and how did it start?

• 1973 -- The first NLDBIS was the LUNAR system
  built by Woods. It used chemical analyses of moon
  rocks.
• By late 1970's -- first good database natural
  language processing systems was developed by
  LIFER/LADDER about US Navy Ships. This system
  used a semantic grammar to parse questions and
  query a distributed database.

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IV. What and how did it start? (cont.)

• 1980-1990 -- NLDB systems became large, diverse
  and represented completely different concept.
• Recent -- commercial products have created NLDB
  system to transfer written or spoken language
  into database queries e.g., PDAs, cell phones.
  Besides, multilingual natural language interfaces
  have developed in the e-commerce environments.

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V. Why is it important, and to whom?

• Database Users want ease reliability
  accuracy of responses reduction in time spent
  querying global accessibility.
• Org.s/Companies improved customer service,
  greater and global accessibility cost to employ
  vs. savings.
• Database Developers Administrators - Additional
  database development human resources for
  linguistic components development  (including
  multiple languages) Additional database
  development testing for reliability and
  performance and security.

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VI. What is the current state?

• Web access
• Global access/multilingual
• Small devices PDAs, Cell Phones
• Less specialized, more varied databases
• Non-specialized database users
• Multiple databases

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VI. What is the current state?(cont.)

• New natural language database interfaces for new
  users!
• New techniques/processes that will support the
  wide variety of databases being accessed by a
  wide variety of users, around the globe!
• An example The Precise System designed by
  computer scientists at the University of
  Washington.

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VI. Current stateThe Precise System
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VI. Current stateThe Precise System (contd.)
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VI. Current stateOther initiatives

• Spoken language dialogue systems.
• Tutorial systems.
• Large-scale dependency grammars which can include
  semantic and morphologic information,
  hierarchical statistical language models. 
• Inductive logic programming to construct natural
  language processing systems (CHILL system
  Mooney)

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VII. What do you expect in the immediate future?

• More transportable natural language interfaces to
  a wider spectrum of databases.
• Improved natural language interface used with
  improved voice recognition.
• More appliances with natural language interfaces.

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VIII. What are the implications for database
users, administrators, developers, and the
general public?

• Now that transportable NLIs are in development
  that make the use of them more feasible across a
  wider spectrum of databases, it is likely we will
  see an expansion of the use of natural language
  database interfaces.  The trend is already afoot
  and if users expect it, it will likely come.

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VIII. Implications (cont.)

• Database Users
• Better or expanded customer service
• Ease of finding answers to questions
• Administrators
• Additional database development testing for
  reliability and performance and security
• Developers
• Additional database development human resources
  for linguistic components development  (including
  multiple languages)
• General Public
• Improved Global accessibility 

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The End.

• Questions?