Transforming natural language requirement descriptions into analysis models

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016299884-A1
Application number	US-201415035682-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Nov 11, 2014
Priority date	Nov 11, 2013
Publication date	Oct 13, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

Natural Language Requirement (NLR) descriptions are parsed to generate syntactic verb structures. These structures are matched with a set of pre-defined semantic patterns to form semantic networks of semantic pattern instances. The networks are searched; any missing concepts identified and any incorrect or ambiguous concepts modified or clarified by user interaction. This interaction creates new semantic pattern instances that are used to generate an analysis model represented by a Unified Modelling Language (UML) or Entity-Relationship (ER) diagram, which can then be subsequently used to generate a computer software system.

First claim

1 . A method for transforming Natural Language Requirement descriptions into an analysis model, the method being performed by a computer system and the method comprising:
parsing the Natural Language Requirement descriptions to generate syntactic verb structures; matching each one of the syntactic verb structures with a pre-defined semantic pattern to thereby identify a matching semantic pair for each of the syntactic verb structures, wherein each pre-defined semantic pattern is from a set of pre-defined semantic patterns based on verb categories; creating a group of instances comprising a semantic pattern instance for each said matching semantic pair, wherein each semantic pattern instance has elements for words contained in the generated syntactic verb structures; composing the group of instances into at least one semantic network; identifying at least one incomplete part of the semantic network; requesting and receiving additional information to complete the incomplete part of the semantic network; adding at least one new semantic pattern instance to the semantic network to create a revised semantic network, wherein the new semantic pattern instance is based on the additional information; and generating an analysis model from the revised semantic network.

2 . The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the parsing also identifies lexical patterns and lexical labels within the syntactic verb structures.

3 . The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the verb categories are used by the matching to identify the matching semantic pattern for each of the syntactic verb structures.

4 . The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein each said semantic pattern instance is created based on verb structure translation rules that identify an agent component of the matching semantic pattern pair, wherein the verb structure translation rules are selected from a rule group that includes: a semantic rule that identifies a said agent component from words in a syntactic verb structure as entities that perform an action; a syntactic rule that identifies a said agent component that initiates or performs an action from a syntactic verb structure; an external subject rule that identifies a said agent component that perform an action from a syntactic verb structure; and a direct object of a verb phrase rule that identifies a said agent component from a noun phrase that is an object of a verb in a syntactic verb structure.

5 . The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the creating includes identifying missing information in at least one of the semantic pattern instances, requesting and receiving the missing information at a user interface of the system, and inserting the missing information into a respective one of the semantic pattern instances.

6 . The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the requesting and receiving the missing information at a user interface includes selecting a natural language template for a semantic pattern instance and displaying in a natural language a request for the missing information, wherein the template is selected from a set of templates in which each template in the set is associated with one of the pre-defined semantic patterns.

7 . The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the creating is characterised by each semantic pattern instance element is created as a lexeme.

8 . The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the creating includes selecting any verb in the matching semantic pair that can be converted into an uninflected form, and converting any such verb into its uninflected form.

9 . The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the composing is determined by rules that are selected from a rule group that includes: only composing semantic pattern instances that are complete; and only composing semantic pattern instances that have a verb in an uninflected form.

10 . The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the identifying includes traversing the semantic network in a modified depth first search to identify at least one incomplete part of the network.

11 . The method as claimed in claim 10 , wherein the modified depth first search is guided by a set of rules that indicate the incomplete part as a sub-network.

12 . The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the generating includes:
mapping the elements of the revised semantic network to analysis model elements.

13 . The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the generating includes outputting the analysis model to the user interface.

14 . A computer system that in operation performs the method as claimed in claim 1 .

15 . A tangible computer-readable medium storing instructions for performing the method as claimed in claim 1 .

16 . A method for transforming a Natural Language Requirement descriptions into an analysis model, the method being performed by a computer system and the method comprising:
parsing the Natural Language Requirement descriptions to generate syntactic verb structures from the natural language; matching each one of the syntactic verb structures with a pre-defined semantic pattern to thereby identify a matching semantic pair for each of the syntactic verb structures, wherein each pre-defined semantic pattern is from a set of pre-defined semantic patterns based on verb categories; creating a group of instances comprising a semantic pattern instance for each said matching semantic pair, wherein each semantic pattern instance has elements for words that form the respective verb structure of the instance; and generating an analysis model from the group of instances.

17 . The method as claimed in claim 16 , wherein the parsing also identifies lexical patterns and lexical labels within the syntactic verb structures.

18 . The method as claimed in claim 16 , wherein the verb categories are used by the matching to identify the matching semantic pattern for each of the syntactic verb structures.

19 . The method as claimed in claim 16 , wherein each said semantic pattern instance is created based on verb structure translation rules that identify an agent component of the matching semantic pattern pair, wherein the verb structure translation rules are selected from a rule group that includes: a semantic rule that identifies a said agent component from words in a syntactic verb structure as entities that perform an action; a syntactic rule that identifies a said agent component that initiates or performs an action from a syntactic verb structure; an external subject rule that identifies a said agent component that perform an action from a syntactic verb structure; and a direct object of a verb phrase rule that identifies a said agent component from a noun phrase that is an object of a verb in a semantic verb structure.

20 . The method as claimed in claim 16 , wherein the creating includes identifying missing information in at least one of the semantic pattern instances, requesting and receiving the missing information at a user interface of the system, and inserting the missing information into a respective one of the semantic pattern instances to form an updated group of instances.

21 . The method as claimed in claim 16 , wherein the generating includes:
mapping each semantic pattern instance in the updated group of instances to an analysis model template to form a mapped pattern; and composing each mapped pattern into a coherent class model.

22 . The method as claimed in claim 16 , wherein the creating is characterised by each semantic pattern instance element is create

Assignees

• Univ Manchester

Inventors

• Chioasca Erol-Valeriu
• Letsholo Keletso Joel
• Zhao Liping

Classifications

• G06F40/205 Primary

  Parsing · CPC title

• G06F40/284

  Lexical analysis, e.g. tokenisation or collocates · CPC title

• G06F40/186

  Templates · CPC title

• G06F40/253

  Grammatical analysis; Style critique · CPC title

• G06F40/30 Primary

  Semantic analysis · CPC title