User interface for supplementing an answer key of a question answering system using semantically equivalent variants of natural language expressions

Abstract

A mechanism is provided in a data processing system having a processor and a memory storing a store of semantic types and instructions for implementing a natural language processing engine for generating a question/answer pair list with semantically equivalent variants. The mechanism generates a user interface for generating a question/answer pair list. The mechanism receives user input in the user interface specifying a question and an answer term and specifying an answer type from a list of previously created answer types. The input term comprises the answer term. The natural language processing engine executing on the data processing system identifies a semantic type of the answer term based on the store of semantic types. The natural language processing engine performs a type-specific series of rule-based expansions of the answer term based on the identified semantic type of the answer term of the answer term. The natural language processing engine adds at least one semantically equivalent variant from the set of semantically equivalent variants of the answer term in association with the specified question to the question/answer pair list to form an expanded question/answer pair list. The natural language processing engine trains a question answering machine learning model for a question answering cognitive system using the expanded question/answer pair list as ground truth.