Fusing Knowledge and Language: A Comparative Study of Knowledge Graph-Based Question Answering with LLMs

Abstract: Knowledge graphs, a powerful tool for structuring information through relational triplets, have recently become the new front-runner in enhancing question-answering systems. While traditional Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) approaches are proficient in fact-based and local context-based extraction from concise texts, they encounter limitations when addressing the thematic and holistic understanding of complex, extensive texts, requiring a deeper analysis of both text and context. This paper presents a comprehensive technical comparative study of three different methodologies for constructing knowledge graph triplets and integrating them with LLMs for question answering: spaCy, Stanford CoreNLP-OpenIE, and GraphRAG, all leveraging open source technologies. We evaluate the effectiveness, feasibility, and adaptability of these methods by analyzing their capabilities, state of development, and their impact on the performance of LLM-based question answering. Experimental results indicate that while OpenIE provides the most comprehensive coverage of triplets, GraphRAG demonstrates superior reasoning abilities among the three. We conclude with a discussion on the strengths and limitations of each method and provide insights into future directions for improving knowledge graph-based question answering.