Patent ID: 7392185
Filing Date: 2008-06-24
Classification: G06F,G09B,G10L,H04M

Abstract:
1. A method of populating a natural language speech lattice with semantically variant questions, the method comprising the steps of: (a) providing a target set of questions associated with a content of a task domain that is to be supported by the natural language speech lattice; (a)′ receiving a first user question from said target set of questions; (b) dividing the user question into a plurality of words corresponding to the user question; (c) determining synonyms for selected words in said plurality of words; (d) formulating a synonym set of questions related to said user question based on said synonyms; (e) performing semantic decoding on said synonym set of questions, to identify a disambiguated set of questions; (f) storing said set of disambiguated questions in a speech recognition lattice; wherein said set of disambiguated questions correspond to semantic variants of said target set of questions that can be recognized by a natural language speech engine used for the task domain.