What was the Question? a Systematization of Information Retrieval and NLP Problems

In this paper we suggest a novel systematization of Information Retrieval and Natural Language Processing problems. Using this rather general description of problems we are able to discuss and proof the equivalence of some problems. We provide reformulations of well-known problems like Named Entity Recognition using our novel description and discuss further research and the expected outcome. We will discuss the relation of two problems, cluster labeling and search query finding. With these results we are able to provide a novel optimization approach to both problems. This novel systematization approach provides a yet unknown view generating new classes of problems in NLP. It brings application and algorithmic approaches together and offers a better description with concepts of theoretical computer science.