Automatic evaluation and improvement of ontologies for natural language processing tasks

This invention describes a system that automatically improves a structured knowledge base, called an ontology, for use in understanding human language. It works by creating a model of the ontology, then using a technique called 'spreading activation' to connect parts of a text to concepts in the ontology and identify related ideas. The system then checks how well this connection process performs for a specific language task, like figuring out word meanings, and adjusts either the ontology itself or how it's used to improve future results.