Forming a hypothesis set from sentences across documents representative of different stances taken across the documents

Abstract

Provided are a computer program product, system, and method for forming a hypothesis set from sentences across documents representative of different stances taken across the documents. Sentences from the documents are clustered into a plurality of clusters. Sentences in a cluster of the clusters have stance scores with respect to other sentences in the cluster that satisfy a stance criteria. At least one similarity group of sentences is formed in the clusters having similarity scores satisfying a similarity criteria. Sentences are selected from the similarity groups in the clusters based on stance scores of the sentences in a similarity group. A hypothesis set is formed of the selected sentences in the similarity groups. Stance scores are determined of sentences in the documents with the sentences in the hypothesis set to determine stances of the documents with respect to the sentences in the hypothesis set.