Obtaining E-R diagrams semi-automatically from natural language specifications

Meziane, F; Vadera, S

Abstract

Since their inception, entity relationship models have played a central role in systems specification, analysis
and development. They have become an important part of several development methodologies and standards
such as SSADM. Obtaining entity relationship models, can however, be a lengthy and time consuming task for
all but the very smallest of specifications. This paper describes a semi-automatic approach for obtaining entity
relationship models from natural language specifications. The approach begins by using natural language
analysis techniques to translate sentences to a meaning representation language called logical form language.
The logical forms of the sentences are used as a basis for identifying the entities and relationships. Heuristics
are then used to suggest suitable degrees for the identified relationships. This paper describes and illustrates
the main phases of the approach and presents a summary of the results obtained when it is applied to a case
study.

Citation

Meziane, F., & Vadera, S. (2004, April). Obtaining E-R diagrams semi-automatically from natural language specifications. Poster presented at Sixth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2004), Universidade Portucalense, Porto, Portugal

• Presentation Conference Type: Poster
• Conference Name: Sixth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2004)
• Conference Location: Universidade Portucalense, Porto, Portugal
• Start Date: Apr 14, 2004
• End Date: Apr 17, 2004
• Publication Date: Apr 14, 2004
• Deposit Date: Mar 2, 2009
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 2, 2009
• Keywords: Software engineering, entity relationship models, specifcations, natural language processing
• Related Public URLs: http://www.iceis.org/iceis2004/; http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/conf/iceis/iceis2004-1.html
• Additional Information: Additional Information : In volume 1 of conference proceedings ('Databases and information systems integration'); Event Type : Conference