Natural Language to What? A Vision for Intermediate Representations in NL-to-X Querying
For researchers in natural language interfaces and data management, this paper reframes the problem space to include heterogeneous and document-centric environments, but it is a conceptual proposal without empirical results.
The paper argues that natural-language querying should not be limited to translation into a predetermined backend language (e.g., SQL), but must also handle cases where the semantic target is unknown or partially specified. It introduces the NLIQ lens and target adequacy criterion to define regimes where the target is given, partially specified, or must be constructed, identifying new research directions in intermediate representation design and heterogeneous compilation.
Natural-language-initiated querying is usually framed as translation into a predetermined backend language such as SQL, Cypher, or SPARQL. That framing is appropriate when the semantic target is known in advance, but it does not cover the full space of natural-language query workloads. In document-centric, mixed, and heterogeneous environments, the first semantic problem may be to determine what target should be constructed before backend-specific execution can begin. This paper proposes the $\textit{NLIQ}~$ lens for this broader space. It introduces target adequacy as the criterion for distinguishing settings in which the target is given, only partially specified, or must itself be constructed, and argues that intermediate representations in the latter regimes are not merely implementation devices but first-class semantic objects. The paper develops a compact framework of $\textit{NLIQ}~$ regimes, illustrates the distinction through representative examples, and identifies a new research terrain around semantic target formation, intermediate representation design, heterogeneous compilation, and answer formation in complex data environments.