Patent ID: 7640254

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a processor; a memory operatively coupled to the processor, the memory containing processor executable components comprising: an authoring tool to annotate components of a database design schema thereby generating annotations; an indexer for indexing the annotations, which are generated by the authoring tool, responsive to a plurality of classifications that are based on information contained in a dictionary and concordance, wherein the indexer comprises: a normalizer for assigning a normalized weight to words of each annotation, based on classifications associated with the words, such that the normalizer assigns more weight to more distinct words than to less distinct words; and a query translator for performing operations comprising: accepting a natural language query; converting the natural language query to a command query using the database design schema and indexed annotations generated by the authoring tool; and presenting the command query to a database management process for interrogating a database; wherein converting the natural language query to the command query comprises: parsing the natural language query; determining whether a word or phrase of the natural language query matches the indexed annotations; for a matching word or phrase of the natural language query, generating a group of fragments, wherein the fragments comprise components of the database design schema associated with matching indexed annotations; for the matching word or phrase of the natural language query, ranking the group of fragments to generate a group of ranked fragments according to ranking criteria; and chaining the fragments from a plurality of groups of ranked fragments together to generate the command query.