Patent ID: 7444279

Claim:
A question answering system which receives question statement data expressed in a natural language and outputs an answer to the question statement data from a document data group which is an answer retrieval target, the system comprising: answer type information storage means for storing an answer type information that defines a plurality of answer types representing types of language expression, one of which can be the answer to the question statement data, and a relevancy of answer types; answer type estimating means for analyzing language expressions of the question statement data entered and estimating an answer type which is a type of a language expression that can be the answer to the question statement data based on the answer type information; document retrieving means for extracting keywords from the question statement data, retrieving and extracting document data including the keywords from the document data group; answer candidate evaluation point calculating means for extracting language expressions that can be an answer from the document data as answer candidates, determining an answer type of individual answer candidates and assigning evaluation points to the individual answer candidates, the evaluation points being determined in accordance with the answer type of the answer candidate and the relevancy of the answer types being defined in the answer type information; answer candidate evaluation point counting means for sorting answer candidates having the same language expression, ranking, the evaluation points of the answer candidates having the same language expression in descending order calculating values of the evaluation points using such weighting that the value to be processed for each evaluation point diminishes in descending ranking order of the evaluation points and a value processed for a second-placed evaluation point takes a value chosen in a range from 0.1 to 0.5 of the value, and regarding the sum total of the values as the evaluation point of the answer candidate having the same language expression; and answer outputting means for outputting answer candidates whose evaluation point counted by the answer candidate evaluation point counting means is equal to or higher than a predetermined evaluation as an answer.