Patent ID: 8214210

Claim:
A method for processing a query, comprising: in a computer system, receiving a first query segment, wherein the first query segment includes audio speech; generating a representation for the first query segment, wherein the representation includes at least two paths associated with alternative phrase sequences for an ambiguity in the audio speech, wherein at least the two alternative phrase sequences have corresponding weights that indicate a confidence that a respective phrase sequence matches a portion of the first query segment, and wherein generating the representation comprises adding to the representation a path for an alternative phrase sequence that includes a synonym for a term in the first query segment; receiving a separate second query segment and dynamically adjusting the weights in the representation based on at least a portion of the second query segment, wherein dynamically adjusting the weights comprises: recomputing the weights for each alternative phrase sequence based on at least one additional path associated with a composite alternative phrase sequence formed by a combination of the first and second query segments; and setting the weights in the representation equal to the recomputed weights; comparing the paths in the representation to a group of documents, and determining matching scores for the group of documents based on the path comparisons.