JPS5932062A - Phrase searching system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain assuredly the translation of a phrase with the same input operation as a word, by searching a phrase starting at an input word out of a dictionary memory, and comparing successively the searched results with each other including the input word to obtain a phrase having a largest number of coincident words. CONSTITUTION:A searching circuit 3 searches words from a dictionary memory 5 and then searches a phrase starting at the corresponding word if exists. Then this phrase and its translation are delivered to a phrase stack 9. The storage data of a word stack 7 is also supplied to a comparator 10. The comparator 10 compares contents of storage between stacks 7 and 9, and a phrase having largest number of coincident words is left at the stack 9. When the storage contents of the stack 9 is limited to one phrase, the translation data held at the stack 7 is read out to an output register 11.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a phrase search method in an electronic translator.

Among conventional electronic translators, there are those that can translate words and those that can translate example sentences, but there are also ones that simply list the words that make up the sentence for an arbitrary sentence. is considered. For example, “Th1s
If you enter the English sentence "is a pen J", "
It is translated as "Kore Des Hitotsu no Ben."

In addition, some translation machines that list word translations in this way have idioms in their dictionaries. Among the dictionaries that have idioms, when you input the first word of the idiom, some will tell you the content of the idiom, while others will input the idiom as a single word. For example, if you want to enter the idiom "Take care of J", you can enter "Take J r separator".
Ke away? He asks J. If you press the "Search" key in this state, Xr Take care? J
, r Search J, r Takecare of
? j and sequentially, so the target idiom r Ta
ke care of? If you press the "separator" key when J is displayed, that idiom will be inputted and you will proceed to the next step. This type of system that asks for the content of an idiom is extremely troublesome to operate.

Also, in the case of inputting the above idiom as one word,
You need to use the space key to separate the words that make up the idiom. For example, "Take LJ c
Operate the keys like ``ara■ofJr break''. If rTakeJr Separation” “Care” “Separation Jr.”
If you operate the "separator" key between each word as in fJ, the words will not be processed as idioms, but will be translated into individual words.

Therefore, key operations are troublesome even when inputting phrases as one word.

The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and provides an idiom search method that allows one to reliably find a translation for a word or idiom by manually performing operations similar to those for words, without being aware of the fact that it is an idiom. The purpose is to

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. 1st
In the figure, 1 is the keyboard, for example, from English to Japanese,
Mode key to specify the translation mode from Japanese to English,
It is equipped with a translation key for instructing the translation of an input word or sentence, a delimiter key, a data input key for inputting English or Japanese, and the like. The data input from the keyboard 1 is temporarily stored in the input register 2, and is sent to the search circuit 3 as well as to the connection detection circuit 4. Further, a delimiter signal outputted from the keyboard 1 is inputted to the search circuit 3 as an activation command. Above search circuit 3
A dictionary memory 5 is connected to. As shown in FIG. 2, this dictionary memory 5 stores English words and idioms as well as Japanese translations (not shown). When the search circuit 3 is given a delimiter signal, the search circuit 3 uses the data held in the input register 2 to select
If the corresponding word is not found, press N.
o Outputs a FOUND signal, and if a word is found, outputs a "word found" signal to the controller 6, and outputs the searched word and bilingual data to the single/word tank 7. Further, a translation command is given to the controller 6 from the keyboard 1. This controller 6 controls writing and reading of data to and from the word stack 7 . Further, the search circuit 3 performs a word search on the dictionary memory 5, and if a corresponding word is found, it searches for a phrase starting with that word, and if there is no phrase to describe, the search circuit 3 sends the word to the connection detection circuit 4. A signal to that effect is sent, and if a corresponding phrase is found, a signal indicating that there is a phrase is sent to the controller 8, and the phrase and its translation are output to the phrase stack 9. The operation of the phrase stack 9 is controlled by the controller 8, and the stored phrase data is output to the connection detection circuit 4, the word stack 7, and the comparison circuit 10. The data stored in the word stack 7 is also input to the comparison circuit 10 . The comparison circuit 1O is activated by a command from the controller 8, compares the memory contents of the word stack 7 and the phrase stack 9, and if they match, sends a match signal to the controller 8, and if they do not match, the connection detection circuit A mismatch signal is output to 4. Further, the comparison circuit 10 checks the stored contents of the phrase stack 9, and if it becomes a - phrase, it transmits that fact to the controller 8. The data held in the word stack 7 is then read out to the output register 11 and displayed on a display section (not shown).

Next, the operation of the above embodiment will be explained with reference to the flowchart of FIG. In the English to Japanese translation mode, when an English word is input from the keyboard 1 as shown in step S1 in FIG. 3, the word data is transferred to the input register 2.
is temporarily stored in the search circuit 3 and connection detection circuit 4.
sent to. For example r r TAKE CARE OF
When inputting the sentence HIM J, when the first word rIJ is input, this input data "■" is written into the input register 2 as shown in FIG. 4(a).

After inputting one word, when the separator key is operated, the separator multi-signal ■1 is output from the keyboard 1, and the search circuit 3
sent to. When the search circuit 3 receives the delimiter signal 1, it searches the dictionary memory 5 according to the data held in the input register 2, as shown in step S2 in FIG. 3, and checks the presence or absence of the corresponding word in step S3. to decide. Then, if there is no corresponding word, the search circuit 3 outputs a No FOUND signal to the control section (not shown), but if there is a word, it outputs a "word exists" signal to the controller 6, and also outputs a signal from the dictionary to the controller 6. The word and its translation are read from the memory 5 and input into the word stack 7. When the "word exists" signal is input, the controller 6 stores the word data rIJ and its parallel translation from the search circuit 3 in the word stack 7 in the step S4 of FIG. 3 as shown in FIG. 4 (-). Write.

In this case, the bilingual translation is omitted. Thereafter, the search circuit 3 searches the dictionary memory 5 for a phrase starting with the above word rIJ, as shown in Stella fs5, and determines the presence or absence of the phrase in Stella fS. Since there are no idioms starting with rIJ, step s7 and s8 will be detailed later.
1.

The processing for the word ends through S9. The word data written in the word stack 7 is read out to the output register 11 by the controller 6 and displayed on a display section (not shown). Then, from key date 1, the next word “TA
When inputting KE J, steps S, −
The dictionary memory 5 is searched by the process of s4, and the process shown in FIG.
As shown in b), the word data rTA- is stored in the word stack 7.
KE J and its translation will be written. Then step S
5. r TAKIε for the dictionary memory 5 by S,
A search for idioms starting with `` is performed.

If there is an idiom, the signal operator 4 indicating ``Idiom exists'' is sent from the search circuit 3 to the controller 8, and the idiom, such as ``TAKE AWAY'' or ``TAKECARE,'' is sent from the search circuit 3 to the controller 8.
J, r TAKE CARE OF J and its parallel translation are read from the dictionary memory 5 and written to the phrase stack 9 in step 810 as shown in FIG. 4(b). Next, the controller 8 sends the activation command 5 to the comparison circuit 10, and as shown in step 811, the word stack 7 and the phrase stack 9 are compared. At this point, the contents of the word stack 7 and the compound word stack 9 do not match, so a mismatch signal I9 is sent from the comparison circuit 1θ to the word detection circuit 4, and as shown in step s7, the connection between the input word and the compound word is detected. The presence or absence of is detected. At this time, the input word "TAKE J" has a relationship with the phrase written in the phrase stack 9, so the connection detection circuit 4
The detection signal rto' of Garannaga 9 is the controller 8.
be sent to. When this controller 8 is given the above-mentioned 75% detection signal 110', it gives a comparison command 5 to the comparison circuit 1o, and proceeds from step s7 to step S12. In this step SI2, the phrase stack 9 and the word stack 7 are compared, and unmatched phrases are deleted from the phrase stack 9. At this point, only the phrases starting with r TAKE J have been written, so the contents of the phrase stack 9 are not erased. This completes the input processing for r TAKE J. The data r I TAKE J written to the word stack 7 is output to the output register 11.
and displayed on the display.

Next key? When you enter the word l'-CARE J from -do1, step 81 is entered as in the case of r TAKE J.
Through the processing in ~S6, the dictionary memory 5 is searched for words and phrases, and in step SIG, as shown in FIG.
As shown in c), the idiom r CAREFORJ, “cAR
EoFJ is written to the phrase stack 9. After that, the program advances to Stella fSll and compares the contents of the word stack 7 and the phrase stack 9.

In this case, r TA held in the word stack 7
It is determined whether KE CARE J is included in each phrase in the phrase stack 9. r TAKE CARE J
If there is an idiom containing ``r TAKEAWAY J'', the process advances to step 813 and the unmatched idiom r TAKEAWAY J is deleted from the idiom stack 9. In this case, “CARVE FORJ, r CAR
EOF J idioms may be followed by other words, so do not erase them. The process then proceeds to step S14, where the comparison circuit 10 determines whether the word stored in the phrase stack 9 has become a phrase. In this case, multiple phrases are written in the phrase stack 9, so "CAR
The input process for "E" is completed. - If it becomes an idiom, replace it with a word from word stack 7 in Stella f81B.

Next, when you enter the word "OF" from keyboard 1,
As described above, the dictionary memory 5 is searched for words and phrases through the processes of steps 81 to S6. In this case, there are no idioms that start with "OF", so Stella fS
6 to Stella fs7, where the connection detection circuit 4 detects the connection between the input word and the phrase written in the phrase register 9. Since "OF" is included in the idioms held in the idiom stack 9, step S7
The judgment result is YES, and the process proceeds to step S12, where the unmatched phrases r TA-KE CARE j and r CA
The phrase RE FORJ is deleted from the phrase stack 9 as shown in FIG. 4(d).

Next, if you input the word "HIM J" from keyboard 1, steps S and xS will appear as described above.

Through this process, the dictionary memory 5 is searched for words and phrases. In this phrase search, rHIMJ
Since there is no idiom starting with , the process advances to step S7 via judgment step S6, and the connection between the input word and the idiom is detected. Since "HIM" has no connection with the phrases held in the phrase stack, the connection detection circuit 4
A signal 110 indicating no connection is sent from the controller 8 to the controller 8, and the process proceeds to step S@. In this step S8, the contents of the word stack 7 and the phrase stack 9 are compared, the phrase with the largest number of matching words is detected, and the phrase and its translation are transferred from the phrase stack 9 to the word stack 7, as shown in FIG. 4(e). Send it and replace it with the corresponding word. Next, the process advances to step S9, where the replaced phrases and related phrases are cleared from the phrase stack 9. The processing for the text input is thus completed, and the text data for each word held in the word stack 7, that is, r I TAKE CAREOF HIM J, is sent to the output register 11 and displayed on the display section.

After inputting the above text, the translation key on the keyboard 1 is operated. By operating this translation key, a translation command TRANS is output from the keyboard 1 and sent to the controller 6. When the controller 6 is given the translation command TRANS, the bilingual data for each word and phrase held in the word stack 7, such as "Watajino Sewawosuru Karen", is read out to the output register 11 and displayed on the display section.

As described above, according to the present invention, in an electronic translator that translates sentences by arranging words, an idiom search is performed for each input word. You can input an appropriate translation by using the same operations as words without having to be conscious of it.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

The drawings show one embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the circuit configuration, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of dictionary memory storage in FIG. 1, and FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing the operation contents. , FIGS. 4(,) to 4(,) are diagrams showing changes in the data storage contents in the input register, word stack, and phrase stack to explain the translation operation. 1...Key bead, 2...Input register, 3...
Search circuit, 5... Dictionary memory, 7... Word stack, 9... Idiom stack.

Claims (1)

[Claims] An electronic translator that searches for and lists translations of words that make up an input sentence, includes a dictionary memory that stores words and phrases in a first language and parallel translations in a second language, and a word input. a search means for searching the dictionary memory for the word and phrases starting with this word each time the search is performed; a word star that sequentially stores the words searched by the search means; an idiom stack for storing idioms; a comparison means for comparing the memory contents of the word stack and the idiom stack to detect the idiom with the largest number of matching words; and means for reading and displaying parallel translations for each word and phrase stored in the word stack according to a translation command.