Patent ID: 7236968

Claim:
A method implemented by a program being executable by a processor for a question-answering apparatus having communication equipment, a storage for storing a plurality of reply examples and a CPU for performing a reply composition process of replying to the question document by using a reply example selected from the plurality of reply examples, the method comprising the steps of: receiving an input of a question document into said communication equipment; storing in said storage important part keyword frequency information of a keyword of a reply example having an important part, and unimportant part keyword frequency information of a keyword of a reply example having an unimportant part; dividing said input question document into a plurality of areas; extracting a plurality of areas from said input question document; obtaining a likelihood value of a question content corresponding to each of said plurality of stored reply examples for each of said plurality of areas, by using said reply example keyword frequency information; combining said plurality of areas to provide one or a plurality of important parts in accordance with said likelihood value of said plurality of reply examples obtained for each of said plurality of areas; calculating an importance degree of each of said plurality of areas by using said important part keyword frequency information; extracting as an important area an area having said calculated importance degree larger than a predetermined threshold value to obtain a reply example candidate corresponding to said important part by using the plurality of stored reply examples.