A knowledge-based approach to design a portable natural language interface to database systems

This paper presents a knowledge-based approach to design a portable natural language interface to database systems, called KID (Knowledge-based Interface to Database systems). To free the user from the need to know about query languages and databases, and to allow the user to access databases in natural language, KID incorporates a knowledge base called the world model (WM), which contains a domain model, linguistic knowledge, and database mapping knowledge. To transport KID to a new domain, the user has only to build a new WM for the domain; the WM is easy for the user to define and understand. KID's processing of the user's query using the WM is transparent enough to the user to enable easy debugging of the WM. Encapsulating all the domain-specific knowledge into the WM makes KID portable. This paper discusses the WM design and KID's knowledge-based processing of a query using the WM.