The influence of semantic link network on the ability of question-answering system

Semantic Link Network plays an important role in representing and understanding text. This paper investigates the influence of semantic links on the basic abilities of a type of QA system that extracts answers from a range of texts (answer range). Research concerns how semantic links influence the answer range and the performance of this type of QA system. Research also concerns the ability to answering different types of questions and supporting different patterns of answering questions. Based on the semantic link network extracted from Wikipedia, an experimental QA system is developed to answer questions according to a range of pages in Wikipedia. Research reached the following results: (1) the answer range and the semantic link network influence each other: keeping a certain range of performance, increase one can decrease the request of the other; and, (2) the semantic link network can enhance the ability of QA system in answering questions and supporting patterns of answering questions covered by semantic link network