Extracting domain models from natural-language requirements

Abstract

Domain modeling is an important step in the transition from natural-language requirements to precise specifications. For large systems, building a domain model manually is a laborious task. Several approaches exist to assist engineers with this task, whereby candidate domain model elements are automatically extracted using Natural Language Processing (NLP). Despite the existing work on domain model extraction, important facets remain under-explored: (1) there is limited empirical evidence about the usefulness of existing extraction rules (heuristics) when applied in industrial settings; (2) existing extraction rules do not adequately exploit the natural-language dependencies detected by modern NLP technologies; and (3) an important class of rules developed by the information retrieval community for information extraction remains unutilized for building domain models.