Patent Document ID: 9229927
Application ID: 14462282

Base Claim:
1. A method of creating a macro for a natural language (NL) query answering system by the one or more computing devices having one or more memories, the method comprising: obtaining, by the one or more computing devices and via at least one of i) a communication network or ii) a user interface device, a first term or phrase in imprecise syntax, wherein the first term or phrase is to serve as a macro for use with the NL query answering system such that, when the first term or phrase is provided as input to the NL query answering system, which is implemented by one or more computing devices, the NL query answering system will interpret the first term or phrase as representing another term or phrase; obtaining, by the one or more computing devices, a second term or phrase in imprecise syntax; generating, by the one or more computing devices, an association between the first term or phrase and the second term or phrase so that the first term or phrase represents the second term or phrase; storing, by the one or more computing devices, the association as a natural language (NL) macro in the one or more memories so that the NL query answering system can recognize, when the NL query answering system subsequently receives the first term or phrase in an NL input, that the first term or phrase represents the second term or phrase; and determining, by the one or more computing devices implementing NL processing techniques, whether a mismatch between a context of the first term or phrase and a context of the second term or phrase exists, including: determining, by the one or more computing devices implementing NL processing techniques, a meaning of the second term or phrase, comparing, by the one or more computing devices, i) the meaning of the second term or phrase with ii) a meaning of the first term or phrase, and determining, by the one or more computing devices, whether a mismatch exists based on the act of comparing.

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Claim 11:
11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising: receiving, by the one or more computing devices, an original NL query; determining, by the one or more computing devices, the original NL query includes the first term or phrase; analyzing, by the one or more computing devices, the NL macro stored in the one or more memories to determine that the first term or phrase is associated with the second term or phrase; in response to analyzing the NL macro, replacing, by the one or more computing devices, in the original NL query, the first term or phrase with the second term or phrase to form a revised NL query; processing, by the NL query answering system, the revised NL query to generate an answer to the original NL query; and providing, by the one or more computing devices, an output corresponding to the generated answer.