Edite - A Natural Language Interface to Databases A new dimension for an old approach

This article presents the Edite system, a Natural Language Interface for Databases (NLIDB), that tries to explore the advantages of joining natural language processing with the expressiveness of graphical interfaces. In order to guarantee a permanent adaptation of this type of solution to a dynamic domain one should consider two critical fundamental factors: extensibility and portability.An overview of the system architecture is presented, emphasising those choices that were imposed by the demands of portability and extensibility. Several general problems of natural language processing that were faced in constructing the system are discussed. Future work is highlighted.