Although a great deal of research effort has been expended in support of natural language (NL) database querying, little effort has gone to NL database  update . One reason for this state of affairs is that in NL querying, one can tie nouns and stative verbs in the query to database objects (relation names, attributes and domain values). In many cases this correspondence seems sufficient to interpret NL queries. NL update seems to require database counterparts for active verbs, such as "hire," "schedule" and "enroll," rather than for stative entities. There seem to be no natural candidates to fill this role.We suggest a database counterpart for active verbs, which we call  verbgraphs . The verbgraphs may be used to support NL update. A verbgraph is a structure for representing the various database changes that a given verb might describe. In addition to describing the variants of a verb, they may be used to disambiguate the update command. Other possible uses of verbgraphs include, specification of defaults, prompting of the user to guide but not dictate user interaction and enforcing a variety of types of database integrity constraints.
['Sharon C. Salveter', 'David Maier']
NATURAL LANGUAGE DATABASE UPDATES