NaLIR: An Interactive Natural Language Interface for Querying Relational Databases

Summary: NaLIR is a generic interactive NL interface that translates complex English queries into SQL (aggregation, nesting, joins) for relational DBs. Demonstrates practical usability across domains and how interactive dialogue minimizes misinterpretation and user burden. (summarized by gpt-5-nano on Feb 09 2026)

Paper ID: 4826
Venue: SIGMOD
Year: 2014
Pagerank: 0.00019966681
Overall Rank: 567 | 96.06%
DOI: 10.1145/2588555.2594519

Incoming Non-self Citations Over Time

Authors

1. Fei Li
2. H. V. Jagadish

Incoming Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 29 of 29 citing papers.

Rank	Citing Paper	Year	Venue	Pagerank
1,643	CodexDB: Synthesizing Code for Query Processing from Natural Language Instructions using GPT-3 Codex	2022	VLDB	0.0001104256
1,932	Making the Case for Query-by-Voice with EchoQuery	2016	SIGMOD	0.00010039301
2,321	DBPal: A Fully Pluggable NL2SQL Training Pipeline	2020	SIGMOD	9.03609e-05
2,433	ScienceBenchmark: A Complex Real-World Benchmark for Evaluating Natural Language to SQL Systems	2024	VLDB	8.8285962e-05
2,988	NL2SQL is a solved problem... Not!	2024	CIDR	7.7761714e-05
3,662	The Dawn of Natural Language to SQL: Are We Fully Ready?	2024	VLDB	6.8672143e-05
3,995	How Large Language Models Will Disrupt Data Management	2023	VLDB	6.5513237e-05
4,877	Precision Interfaces for Different Modalities	2018	SIGMOD	5.8593569e-05
4,934	From BERT to GPT-3 Codex: Harnessing the Potential of Very Large Language Models for Data Management	2022	VLDB	5.8198826e-05
4,972	Verifying Text Summaries of Relational Data Sets	2019	SIGMOD	5.7931494e-05
4,980	Interactive Query Synthesis from Input-Output Examples	2017	SIGMOD	5.7873101e-05
5,281	State of the Art and Open Challenges in Natural Language Interfaces to Data	2020	SIGMOD	5.5896272e-05
5,509	Can Large Language Models Predict Data Correlations from Column Names?	2023	VLDB	5.4703368e-05
5,995	DataChat: An Intuitive and Collaborative Data Analytics Platform	2023	SIGMOD	5.2415551e-05
6,007	Data Vocalization with CiceroDB	2019	CIDR	5.2415551e-05
6,737	Demonstrating GPT-DB: Generating Query-Specific and Customizable Code for SQL Processing with GPT-4	2023	VLDB	4.9457488e-05
7,721	Bootstrapping an End-to-End Natural Language Interface for Databases	2019	SIGMOD	4.6683091e-05
7,731	AggChecker: A Fact-Checking System for Text Summaries of Relational Data Sets	2019	VLDB	4.6658615e-05
8,052	Generating Succinct Descriptions of Database Schemata for Cost-Efficient Prompting of Large Language Models	2024	VLDB	4.5953106e-05
8,615	The Case for NLP-Enhanced Database Tuning: Towards Tuning Tools that "Read the Manual"	2021	VLDB	4.484683e-05
8,683	FormaT5: Abstention and Examples for Conditional Table Formatting with Natural Language	2024	VLDB	4.4686885e-05
8,990	Towards Enhancing Database Education: Natural Language Generation Meets Query Execution Plans	2021	SIGMOD	4.413295e-05
9,151	The Power of Constraints in Natural Language to SQL Translation	2025	VLDB	4.3849295e-05
10,436	Demonstrating CEDAR: A System for Cost-Efficient Data-Driven Claim Verification	2025	SIGMOD	4.1945683e-05
10,747	CEDAR: A System for Cost-Efficient Data-Driven Claim Verification	2025	VLDB	4.1945683e-05
11,460	Demonstrating Robust Voice Querying with MUVE: Optimally Visualizing Results of Phonetically Similar Queries	2021	SIGMOD	4.1945683e-05
11,506	Robust Voice Querying with MUVE: Optimally Visualizing Results of Phonetically Similar Queries	2021	VLDB	4.1945683e-05
11,660	NEURON: Query Execution Plan Meets Natural Language Processing For Augmenting DB Education	2019	SIGMOD	4.1945683e-05
11,737	Tooling Framework for Instantiating Natural Language Querying System	2018	VLDB	4.1945683e-05

Outgoing Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 6 of 6 cited papers.

Citations counted here include only citations to other VLDB/SIGMOD/CIDR/PODS papers in this database.

Rank	Cited Paper	Year	Venue	Pagerank
1,153	SQAK: Doing More with Keywords	2008	SIGMOD	0.00013642866
1,168	SODA: Generating SQL for Business Users	2012	VLDB	0.00013541143
1,673	λόγος: A System for Translating Queries into Narratives	2012	SIGMOD	0.00010948717
1,687	QUEST: A Keyword Search System for Relational Data based on Semantic and Machine Learning Techniques	2013	VLDB	0.00010916417
2,025	Keyword++: A Framework to Improve Keyword Search Over Entity Databases	2010	VLDB	9.7462452e-05
2,313	NaLIX: an Interactive Natural Language Interface for Querying XML	2005	SIGMOD	9.0497076e-05

Semantically Similar Papers

Overall Rank	Paper	Year	Venue	Pagerank
8,802	Constructing Expressive Relational Queries with Dual-Specification Synthesis	2020	CIDR	4.4480274e-05
2,988	NL2SQL is a solved problem... Not!	2024	CIDR	7.7761714e-05
11,737	Tooling Framework for Instantiating Natural Language Querying System	2018	VLDB	4.1945683e-05
11,714	An Ontology based Dialog Interface to Database	2018	SIGMOD	4.1945683e-05
10,837	Natural Language to SQL: State of the Art and Open Problems	2025	VLDB	4.1945683e-05
2,816	DBPal: A Learned NL-Interface for Databases	2018	SIGMOD	8.0694738e-05
6,762	Natural Language Querying of Complex Business Intelligence Queries	2019	SIGMOD	4.9345125e-05
11,551	Toward Pure Natural Language Interaction with Databases	2020	CIDR	4.1945683e-05
2,313	NaLIX: an Interactive Natural Language Interface for Querying XML	2005	SIGMOD	9.0497076e-05
206	Constructing an Interactive Natural Language Interface for Relational Databases	2015	VLDB	0.00034667032