Paraphrasing Questions Using Given and new information

Abstract

The design and implementation of a paraphrase component for a natural language question-answering system (CO-OP) is presented. The component is used to produce a paraphrase of a user's question to the system, which is presented to the user before the question is evaluated and answered. A major point made is the role of given and new information in formulating a paraphrase that differs in a meaningful way from the user's question. A description is also given of the transformational grammar that is used by the paraphraser.