Semantic similarity between sentences through approximate tree matching

Abstract

We describe an algorithm to measure the similarity between sentences, integrating the edit distance between trees and single-term similarity techniques, and also allowing the pattern to be defined approximately, omitting some structural details. A technique of this kind is of interest in a variety of applications, such as information extraction/retrieval or question answering, where error-tolerant recognition allows incomplete sentences to be integrated in the computation process. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.