Cross-Language Information Access through Phrase Browsing

This paper presents a cross-language retrieval system which integrates shallow parsing and lexical semantic databases in an interactive approach to information access. At indexing time, the system extracts a list of phrases for every language in the collection. At search time, the system bridges the gap between the user's query and the relevant phrases in the collection in any language, expanding and translating individual terms and retaining the phrases that are actually relevant in the collection. The user can access information via a standard ranked list of documents or via a hierarchy of phrasal information, in which the selection of a phrase modifies the ranked list and provides access to the documents related to the phrase. This interactive setting, to our belief, optimises the use of simple and robust Natural Language resources and techniques to facilitate crosslanguage information access.