摘要:
A document retrieval system (20) where a user can enter a query, including a natural query, in a desired one of a plurality of supported languages, and retrieve documents from a database (60) that includes documents in at least one other language of the plurality of supported languages. The user need not have any knowledge of the other languages. Each document in the database is subjected to a set of processing steps to generate a language-independent conceptual representation of the subject content of the document. The query is also subjected to a (possibly different) set of processing steps to generate a language-independent conceptual representation of the subject content of the query. Documents are matched to queries based on the conceptual-level contents of the document and query, and, optionally, on the basis of the term-based representation.