Using Natural Language for Database Design.
Edith Buchholz, Antje Düsterhöft · 1994
. This paper deals with a natural language dialogue tool for supporting the database design process. We want to illustrate how natural language (German) can be used for obtaining a skeleton design and for supporting the acquisition of semantics of the prospective database. The approach is based on the assumption that verbs form a central part in defining the meaning of sentences and imply semantic roles in the sentences which have to be filled by objects. We are using a moderated dialogue for drawing the designer's attention to these objects in order to extract comprehensive information about the domain. 1 Introduction The quality of database design is a decisive factor for the efficiency of a database application. A database designer has to use a high level of abstraction for mapping his realworld application onto an entity relationship model. The designer has to learn the model and the constraints to use it. Natural language can be exploited in order to overcome this bottleneck. Fr...