NLPX at INEX 2004

Users of information retrieval (IR) systems require an interface that is powerful and easy-to-use in order to fulfill their information requirement. In XML-IR systems this is a non-trivial task since users expect these systems to fulfill both their structural and content requirements. Most existing XML-IR systems accept queries formatted in formal query languages, however, these languages are difficult to use. This paper presents NLPX – an XML-IR system with a natural language interface that is user friendly enough so it can be used intuitively, but sophisticated enough to be able to handle complex structured queries. NLPX accepts English queries that contain both users’ content and structural requirements. It uses a set of grammar templates to derive the structural and content requirements and translates them into a formal language (NEXI). The formal language queries can then be processed by many existing XML-IR systems. The system was developed for participation in the NLP Track of the INEX 2004 Workshop, and results indicated that natural language interfaces are able to capture users’ structural and content requirements, but not as accurately as some formal language interfaces