A Survey on Why-Type Question Answering Systems

Abstract: Search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Baidu yield information in the form of a relevant set of web pages according to the need of the user. Question Answering Systems reduce the time taken to get an answer, to a query asked in natural language by providing the one most relevant answer. To the best of our knowledge, major research in Why-type questions began in early 2000's and our work on Why-type questions can help explore newer avenues for fact-finding and analysis. The paper presents a survey on Why-type Question Answering System, details the architecture, the processes involved in the system and suggests further areas of research.