Applying inductive logic programming to automate the function of an intelligent natural language interfaces for databases

Abstract

One of the foundational subjects in both artificial intelligence (AI) and database technologies is natural language interfaces for databases (NLIDB). The primary goal of NLIDB is to enable users to interact with databases using natural languages such as English, Arabic, and French. While many existing NLIDBs rely on linguistic operations to meet the challenges of user’s ambiguity existing in natural language queries (NLQ), there is currently a growing emphasis on utilizing inductive logic programming (ILP) to develop natural language processing (NLP) applications. This is because ILP reduces the requirement for linguistic expertise in building NLP systems. This paper outlines a methodology for automating the construction of NLIDB. This method utilizes ILP to derive transfer rules that directly translate NLQ into a clear and unambiguous logical query, which subsequently translatable into database query languages (DQL). To acquire these rules, our system was trained within a corpus consisting of parallel examples of NLQs and their logical interpretations. The experimental results demonstrate the promise of this approach, as it enables the direct translation of all NLQs with grammatical structures similar to those already present in the trained corpus into a logical query.