A Hybrid Approach to Spoken Query Processing in Document Retrieval System

In the context of the THISL spoken document retrieval system, we present a hybrid approach to spoken query processing, which enables to increase recognition rates and to extract relevant information for the application. The query processing is distributed between grammar and language model, based on the assumption that a query can be decomposed in two relatively independent parts; the addressing form, which is parsed with a grammar, and the queried content, which is scored with a domain specific language model. Our aim is to retrieve the content sequence, which allows us to consult the database, but also, to keep information about the query formulations in order to develop an interaction between the user and the retrieval engine. This leads us to work closely with the speech recogniser and to carry out together the recognition and the query analysis.