Overview of the Question Builder

Microsoft English Query version 2.0 features the Question Builder, which supports dynamic browsing of domain-specific knowledge and provides help in constructing questions. Using the Question Builder, an end user can find out:

• What kind of information the database contains.
• What kind of basic relationships are represented in the database.
• What English phrases can be used to ask questions about basic relationships.

The Question Builder helps users form questions that are semantically and syntactically valid for your application. The Question Builder achieves this by allowing the user to explore the concepts in the domain and by generating both simple and complex sentences as examples.

Allowing the User to Explore the Concepts in the Application Domain

The Question Builder provides a listing of the major entities, their corresponding minor entities, and the relationships in which they participate. For each entity, a user discovers:

• Its singular and plural forms
• Any corresponding synonyms
• Help information (specified with the English Query domain editor)

With this information, the user learns how to reference the entity in a question.

For exploring the relations between two or more entities, the Question Builder generates a list of relationships between them.

Generating Both Simple and Complex Sentences

After exploring the contents of the domain, the user may still need guidance in forming their questions. The Question Builder provides a set of example questions of which there are two types:

• Simple example questions - questions involving one relationship.
• Complex example questions- questions involving two or more relationships.