Sets of equivalent syntactic patterns are learned from a corpus of documents. A set of one or more input documents is received. The set of one or more input documents is processed for one or more expressions that match a set of equivalent syntactic patterns from among the sets of equivalent syntactic patterns. A syntactic pattern from among the set of equivalent syntactic patterns is selected for a headline. The syntactic pattern reflects a main event described by the set of one or more input documents. The headline is generated using the syntactic pattern.
