JPH0337766A - Word dictionary retrieving device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To execute the collation with a word dictionary at high speed by deciding that a word existing in a word dictionary memory appears in an inputted character-string, when a coincidence signal is detected from all of a first character - an (n)-th character comparator by being synchronized with a deciding clock, and calculating the word length, based on a residual detecting signal. CONSTITUTION:A (j)-th character comparator 3 outputs a coincidence signal 30, when the (j)-th character (j is an integer of 1<=j<=n) of the data of an (n) character portion read out of a word dictionary memory 1 to one address shown by an address counter 4 coincides with the (j)-th character of one of (m) pieces of shift registers 2, and outputs the coincidence signal 30 and a residual detecting signal 31, when the character coincides with a residual signal. A deciding circuit 6 is synchronized with a deciding clock 72, and decides that a word existing in the word dictionary memory 1 appears in a character-string inputted by an input device 5, when a coincidence signal is detected from all of (n) comparators 3. A word length calculating circuit 8 calculates word length 80, based on the residual detecting signal 31 outputted from (n) comparators 3. In such a manner, the collation with a word dictionary can be executed at the high speed.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention (Industrial Field of Application) The present invention is a method for searching for a part of an input character string in which a word existing in the word dictionary appears by comparing an input character string with a word dictionary. The present invention relates to a dictionary search device. In particular, the present invention relates to a word dictionary search device that can be applied even when each character in an input character string has multiple candidates.

When each character in the input character string is unique without multiple candidates, the word dictionary search device is the part of the kana-kanji conversion device that performs a word dictionary search for the kana character string input from the keyboard, a machine translation device, and a sentence-to-speech conversion device. - It is used in grammar proofing devices and the like to perform word dictionary 1u searches for character strings containing kanji and kana created using word processors.

When there are multiple candidates for each character in an input character string, a word dictionary search device is used in speech recognition devices, character recognition devices, etc. to select the most likely character from multiple candidate characters in the recognition results. It is used in departments etc.

(Prior art) The word dictionary search method conventionally used in kana-kanji conversion devices, sentence-to-speech conversion devices, etc. is basically based on the Kana-Kanji Conversion J (Japanese translation, Shobara, NEEK
J: Japan-I: J Research, Vol. 25, No. 5, pp. 23-60,
(1973). In other words, cut out a substring from the input string, and write the word that matches the notation (in kana-kanji conversion, ``kana notation'', that is, ``yomigana'') into the substring. (Hereinafter, this will be referred to as the first prior art.) For example, ``Perform a dictionary search for 'ili M!i'' for the character string containing kanji and kana for ``analyze the sentence j.'' In case,
To search for words starting from each letter position, such as the 1st or 2nd letter, use ``Analyze a sentence'' ``Analyze a chapter'' ``Analyze a chapter'' Separately cut out substrings such as ``. Then, for each partial character string, a partial character string with the end deleted is also generated, and each of them is searched from Jij and the word dictionary. In other words, when searching for a word that starts with the first letter, "analyze the sentence", "do not parse the sentence", "analyze the sentence", "solve the sentence J r sentence φ J "also J
For substrings such as r or J, when searching for a word starting with the second letter by repeating the search one after another, use ``parse chapter'', ``do not parse chapter'', ``parse chapter'', ``solve grass''. The search is repeated one after another for substrings such as ``Chapter'' and ``Kou.'' As a result, words that match the notation are found for the substrings such as the underlined sentences, sentences, and chapters. Become.

In this first conventional technique, the word dictionary is searched repeatedly for multiple substrings, but by devising the structure of the word dictionary and making J:H< We are trying to shorten the time required. 1 For example,
Sort the words in the word dictionary in advance and perform a binary search, or divide the words into characters such as the first and second characters LJ, group the common parts together, and perform character-by-character matching as a wooden drawing. etc. Regarding the flatness of dictionaries and the innovation of search methods, please refer to the literature: ``The Art.
of ComputerProgramming 3:
5ort,ing and Searching”
(D, E.

Knuth, Addison-Wesley, 19
73).

However, this first conventional technique is intended to be realized as a sequential program on a computer, and the measures to shorten the required time are within the framework of sequential processing. therefore,
A certain substring of the input string and a certain single 51 in the word bud
Processing such as comparing the string with the notation () is performed one character at a time. For example, to find the ratio of the substring ``sentence'' to the word ``sentence'' in the word dictionary, match ``sentence'' with ``r sentence'', and when they match, match ``ken'' with ``chapter''. Then, the matching process is repeated character by character, such that the matching fails due to a mismatch with "wo".

In addition, in the first conventional technique td:r, when there are m candidates for each character in the input character string, the candidates are divided into partial character strings of length L in advance, and the candidates are combined in mL ways. It is necessary to generate a string. Then, for each of them, a partial character string with the end deleted as described above is generated [, and the C1 word dictionary is searched.

- When comparing a character string of a certain length L with an input character string, it is considered that instead of repeatedly matching each character, one set of corresponding character positions should be matched at the same time. . At that time, if the input string is stored in a shift register, shifting the collation position will shift all characters in the shift register one character at a time, rather than cutting out a substring from the input string again. This will also make it possible. This second prior art is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 63-26142.
No. 1 Publication F Character string processing device] and JP-A-63-261
No. 422, "Character string matching device". Note that in this second conventional technique, there are no plural candidates for the input character string, and the number of character strings to be searched is limited to one (not many as in a word dictionary).

JP-A No. 62-67636 "Verification method" and literature: "Speech 1" Dictionary verification algorithm J for high-speed language processing in Japanese input systems (Hamaguchi and Suzuki, Transactions of the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers, No. J70) A third prior art is shown in Vol. D, No. 8, pp. 1589-1596 1987).

The third conventional technique assumes that there are a plurality of character candidates in the input character string. First, set the type of character to M (for example, in the JIS character code table, M =
83), one M-bit memory is prepared for each character position such as the first character and second character, and each bit corresponding to a plurality of candidate characters is set to 1.

At the time of matching, for each word in the word dictionary search, the bit contents of the corresponding character (1 or 0) at the same time. Once l has been read from all M bisoto memories, (1i
This means that a word in the lexicon 18 has appeared.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) The first prior art has the drawback that, as described above, word dictionary searches for a large number of partial character strings must be repeated. This drawback is particularly noticeable when there are multiple candidates for each character in the input string. length K
If there are m candidates for each character in the input string, let L be the length of the longest substring, then let L be the length of the longest word in the dictionary), the maximum (+11
It becomes necessary to repeat the search for LXK) substrings. Normally, conditions are set in advance to avoid searching for unnecessary substrings, so (mXLXK) is the worst case, but the number of searches is still quite large.

A second drawback of the first prior art is that a certain partial character string is compared with a character string representing a certain word in a word dictionary in order, character by character, so the comparison takes time.

The second prior art addresses the second drawback of the first prior art. However, the second conventional technique cannot be applied when there are multiple candidates in the input character string.

In addition, the number of character strings to be searched is limited to one, and considering that comparisons are made with many character strings like in a word dictionary, the difference in the length of each single notation in a word dictionary search becomes a problem. Not applicable.

The third prior art addresses two drawbacks of the first prior art. However, in order to store the input string, it is necessary to prepare a memory with the number of bits for each type of character and the length of the string, so if there are many types of characters, the memory size becomes quite large. There is a problem with C.

In the case of kana-kanji conversion and voice recognition, the input character string is limited to about 100 types of hiragana (or phonetic characters), so this is not much of a problem, but body-voice conversion and Isonami, which target character strings containing kanji and kana, In the case of translation, etc., there are 3,000 to 4,000 types of characters, including kanji, so the memory becomes large, which becomes a problem.

In addition, in the third conventional technique, only a single character search is performed starting from the beginning of the input character string, so when searching for a word starting from the second character, a word starting from the third character, etc. There is also the problem that it is necessary to register the input character string in the memory again.

Furthermore, in the third conventional technique, it is possible to know that a matching single word has appeared up to a certain length from the beginning of the input character string, but the length cannot be determined by memorizing the address of the word in the word dictionary. Then, I had to look up the spelling of that word in the C1 word dictionary.

An object of the present invention is to provide a word dictionary search device that eliminates the above-mentioned drawbacks of the prior art and can perform high-speed matching with a word dictionary even if each character in an input character string has multiple candidates. That's true. In addition, we propose a word dictionary search device equipped with a mechanism that can easily calculate the length of detected (11 words) (JH
do.

(Means for Solving the Problems) The present invention provides the first to mth candidates (m is m≧1) for each character.
An input device for character strings with m types of candidates up to an integer of The word i'iH1' memory filled with predetermined residual symbols in the part less than the characters, and -C by the input device.
a controller that generates one shift clock each time m types of candidates for one character are input, and a determination clock and a counter clock a number of times corresponding to the total number of words in the word dictionary memory; and a controller that is synchronized with the shift clock. an address counter of the word dictionary memory that performs reset and count-up in synchronization with the counter clock; and first, second, . . . of the character string input by the input device.
. . . corresponding to the m-th candidate and sequentially moving characters one by one in synchronization with the shift clock.
2nd...corresponds to the m-th candidate shift register and the 1st and 2nd characters of the n-character data read from the word dictionary memory...the n-th character. When the character at the position matches the character at the same position of the first, second, ..., m-th candidate shift register, a match signal is output, and when the character matches the residual symbol, a match signal and the remainder are output. 1st and 2nd characters that output the symbol...
・If a match signal is detected from the n-th character comparison circuit, and all of the first character, second character,... n-th character comparison circuit in synchronization with the determination clock, the input device The present invention is characterized by comprising a determination circuit that determines that a word existing in the word dictionary memory has appeared in an input character string, and a word length calculation circuit that calculates a word length based on the residual detection signal. This is a word dictionary search device.

(Example) The structure and operation of the present invention will be explained using the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a first embodiment of the word dictionary search device of the present invention. Below, each component will be explained first.

The input device 5 selects from the first candidate to the m-th candidate (
It is a device for inputting a character string in which there are m types of candidates (m is an integer where m≧1), and is, for example, a voice recognition device or a character recognition device. The input device 5 simultaneously outputs m candidates for each character, and transmits the timing of the output to the controller 7 using an input clock 50.

Word dictionary memory 1 is for n characters (n is an integer where n≧1)
One notation of a word is stored in each address having data of , and predetermined residual symbols are filled in the portion less than n characters. FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of the contents of the word dictionary memory 1 (n=4 in FIG. 2). In FIG. 2, △ represents the residual symbol. If the address of the word dictionary memory 1 in FIG. 2 is a, then n (=4) characters "Japan △△" are read out at the same time. The word dictionary memory 1 can be realized using an IC memory or the like. Normally, kanji codes are expressed in 16 bits, so the data in word dictionary memory 1 in Figure 2 contains 16 bits.
X4=64 bits. With current IC memories, only about 8 bits of data can be read simultaneously, so eight such IC memories can be arranged in parallel.

The controller 7 generates one shift clock and a judgment clock and a counter clock the number of times according to the total number of words in the word dictionary memory l every time m types of candidates for one character are inputted by the input device 5. do. FIG. 3 is an example of a time chart of the human output signal of the controller 7. In the time chart of FIG. 3, each time the input clock 5o is input from the input device 5, the shift clock 70 is first output once (the input clock 50 is output as it is as the shift clock 70), and then the judgment clock is output. 72
and counter clock 71 are alternately output N times. However, the counter clock 71 may be clocked (N-1) times. Here, N is the total number of words in the word dictionary memory 1. A person skilled in the art can easily realize a controller 7 that operates according to such a time chart.

The address counter 4 is a counter that performs reset in synchronization with the shift clock 70 and count-up in synchronization with the counter clock 71, and outputs the counter value as an address value of the word dictionary memory 1. Conventional counter I
This can be achieved with C.

The first candidate shift register 2 sequentially feeds the i-th candidate (i is an integer such that 1≦i≦m) of the character string inputted by the input device 5 one character at a time in synchronization with the shift clock 70. This is a shift register that stores characters. This shift register 2 is provided for each of the m candidates arranged for each character of the input character string, and includes a first candidate shift register, a second candidate shift register, . . . , a first candidate shift register, and a second candidate shift register. There are m shift registers.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of the configuration of each shift register 2. As shown in FIG. When one character is represented by d bits, the first candidate shift register 2 has a shift clock 70 as shown in FIG.
It can be realized with (dXn) D flip-flops synchronized with (d parallel connected and n series connected)
. d numbers connected in parallel with 1↑ and ゛ε correspond to one character, and their outputs are collectively sent to the ratio 1 bit circuit 3.

The j-th character comparison circuit 3 compares the data of 11 characters read from the word dictionary memory 1 for one address indicated by the address counter 4, where the j@th q is an integer satisfying 1≦j≦n).
A circuit that outputs a match signal 30 when a character matches the j-th sentence of any of the m shift registers 2, and outputs a match signal 30 and a residual detection signal 31 when it matches a residual signal. It is. This comparison circuit 3 is provided for each of the data width n characters of the word dictionary memory 1,
1st character comparison circuit, 2nd character comparison circuit,..., n
There are n character comparison circuits. FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of the configuration of the j-th character comparison circuit 3. When one character is represented by d bits and m shift registers 2 are provided, the j-th character comparison circuit 3 is (m+1) as shown in FIG.
It can be configured with d-bit comparators and one OR gate. The m d-bit comparators compare the j-th character of the n-character data read from the word latent memory 1 with the j-th character of each shift register 2, and compare the remaining one d-bit The comparator selects n which is being read from the word dictionary memory 1.
Check whether the jth character of the character data is a residual symbol. In the final OR date output, this (m+1
) comparators, when a match is detected,
A coincidence signal 30 is output. Further, the output of the d-bit comparator which checks whether or not the j-th character of the n-character data read from the word dictionary memory 1 is also a residual symbol is directly used as the residual detection signal 31.

In synchronization with the determination clock 72, the determination circuit 6 determines whether a word dictionary memory 1 is included in the character string input by the input device 5 when a matching signal is detected from all n comparison circuits.
This is a circuit that determines that a word that exists within has appeared. FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of the configuration of the determination circuit 6. As shown in FIG. 6, the determination circuit 6 includes one AND gate and one D gate.
This can be done with flip-flops.

The word length calculation circuit 8 is a circuit that calculates the word length 80 based on the residual detection signals 31 output from the n comparison circuits 3. FIG. 9 shows a country showing an example of the configuration of the word length calculation circuit 8. In the circuit of FIG. 9, the balance detection signal 31 arrives from the j-th character comparison circuit (here, 2≦j≦n), and (j-1
) When the residual detection signal 31 is not received from the character comparison circuit, (j-1) is output as the word length 80. Further, when the residual detection signal 31 does not arrive from any of the first character comparison circuit to the nth character comparison circuit, a fraction of n is output as the word length 80. If the residual detection signal 31 is received from all of the 1st character comparison circuit to the nth character comparison circuit,
O is output as a word length of 80 (however, this means that the word dictionary memory 1 contains a word with a word length of O, and this is a case that cannot normally be considered).

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be explained using an example.

Figure 7 shows an example of changes in the contents of the first candidate shift register, second candidate shift register, and third candidate shift register when n = 4, m = 3, and the length of the input character string is 4. This is a diagram. In the 3×4 matrix shown in FIG. 7, one row corresponds to the contents of each shift register 2, the row direction represents the character device (1 to 4), and the column direction represents the candidate level (1 to 3). There is. In the character strings input to these shift registers 2, the first character candidates are "day" in order from the first candidate.
``White''``J'' Second letter candidates are ``Ki''``Book''
``Dog 1.3 letter l'' is ``electricity 1''``lightning''``fog'', 4
The characters are ``Ki'', ``Shima'', and ``Kai'' in order.The shaded area indicates that the characters are not stored -C.

In FIG. 7(a) to (h), (a)−+(b)−+
(c)−+(d)−+(e)−+(f)→(g)→(h
) indicates a change that occurs each time the shift clock 7o is generated. And (a) to (g
), the counter clock 71 and the determination clock 72 are generated N times. Since the address counter 4 is reset by the shift clock 70 and counted up N times by the counter clock 71, in each state, all words (N ) are read out, and n (four in this example) comparison circuits 3 compare them with the contents of the shift register shown in FIG.

As a result, in each state, the determination circuit 6 detects the appearance of, for example, the following words in the word dictionary memory 1. Then, for these, the word length output by the word length calculation circuit becomes the value in <>.

(a) Not applicable b) Not applicable C) Not applicable d) Japan J <1> r Japan J <2> r EJ Hondenki J
ku 4〉 “Hiiri J <2> r White J <1> r Shiraki] Ku 2>
F-th” Ku1〉 (e) “Book J <1> r Book J <1> r large] Kul>
(OF Electric J <i> r Electric J <2> r Fog] Ku1>
F fog, li'lJ <2> r thunder 1ku I> (g) "Ki J <1> r island 1ku1> Among these, the contents of the shift register in Fig. 7 in state (d) and the word dictionary The word in "E1 book" (= "Japan △△]
) The operation of each comparator circuit 3 when comparing the .

The first character comparison circuit generates a match signal 30 when the "day" of 1 Japan △△1 matches the first character "F day" of the first candidate shift register.The second character comparison circuit generates a match signal 30 when "[ 1 piece △
F book J of △J and 1 of the second character of the second candidate shift register
A match signal 30 is generated by the match with book 1. Both the third character comparison circuit and the fourth character comparison circuit detect the "△" (residual symbol) of "Japan △△" and generate a match signal 30 and a remaining yarn detection signal 31.

As a result, the determination circuit 6 receives the match signals 30 from all the comparison circuits 3 and detects the appearance of a word. At that time, the word length detection circuit 8 receives the residual detection signal 31 from the third character comparison circuit and the fourth character comparison circuit, and
2 is output as the value of word length 80.

Note that when the input character string length is K, sequential forwarding within the shift register 2 needs to be performed at least (K+n-1) times. Therefore, after inputting the input character string of length K, the input device 5 needs to further input a dummy character string (n-1) times. Alternatively, the controller 7 detects the end of the input character string, and then repeats the cycle of the shift clock 70 once, the counter clock 71, and the determination clock 72 N times each (n-', L) times. You can do it as usual.

Also, during the first (n-1) friend sending (in Figure 7,
In cases a) to (C)), since the input character string has not reached the beginning of the shift register 2, there is no point in comparing it with the word dictionary memory 1. Therefore, during that time, the controller 7 does not generate the counter clock 71 or the determination clock 72, but continuously outputs only the shift clock 70 and the CQ
! JE may also be used.

Above, we have shown an actual hm example for the general case where there are m candidates for each character in the input character string. In a dictionary search or the like, each character in an input character string has one type (m=1). FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing a second embodiment aimed at such a case. In this case, only one shift register 2 is required. Since the groove bottom element and operation may be set to m=1 in the embodiment shown in FIG. 1, a description thereof will be omitted.

(Effects of the Invention) As explained above, according to the present invention, for character strings consisting of many types of characters such as kanji, each character has multiple candidates. 1) A search device is obtained that is capable of matching words. In particular, regardless of the number of candidates for each character in the input string and the length of the word in the word dictionary, matching the input string with one word in the word dictionary can be performed within about two clocks. The effect is large.

Furthermore, as shown in the embodiments, each component of the present invention can be realized by combining a small number of logic ICs. Therefore, an advantage of using LSI technology is that it can be realized as a very compact device.

In addition, since it is not realized as software on a general-purpose computer as in the conventional technology No. It is possible to configure settings, and the speed is excellent in this respect as well.

Due to the above-mentioned high speed, the present invention does not limit the number of words to be matched in the word dictionary a as in the first prior art described above, but even if all words in the word dictionary are matched. It is thought that a word dictionary search device that is sufficiently faster than the conventional method can be obtained, but as a result, there is also the advantage that the word dictionary does not need to be sorted in the order of the front and write codes. Therefore, even if words are added or deleted, there is no need to reorganize the word dictionary, and maintenance of i,it3@dictionary is extremely easy.

In addition, with the word dictionary search device of the present invention, not only can it be seen that a word in the word dictionary appears in the input character string, but also the length of the word can be obtained at the same time. There is no need to read out the data, and processing efficiency is high.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the IB command of the first embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of the contents of the word dictionary memory l,
3 is an example of a time chart of the human output signal of the controller 7, FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of the configuration of the shift register 2, FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of the configuration of the comparison circuit 3, and FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of the configuration of the determination circuit. 7(a) to (h) are diagrams showing examples of changes in the contents of the shift register 2, and FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing a second embodiment of the present invention. , FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an example of the configuration of the word length calculation circuit 8. In FIG. In the figure, 1... Word dictionary memory, 2... Shift register (i-th candidate shift register), 3... Comparison circuit (symptom comparison circuit), 4... Address counter, 5
. . . Input device, 6. Judgment circuit, 7. Controller, 8. Word length detection circuit, 30. Match signal.
31...Residual detection signal, 50...Input clock, 7
0...Shift clock, 71...Counter clock,
72... Judgment clock.

Claims (1)

[Claims] A character string input device in which there are m types of candidates from the first to the mth candidate (m is an integer where m≧1) for each character;
A word dictionary memory stores one word notation at each address with a data width of n characters (n is an integer where n≧1), and fills the portion less than n characters with predetermined residual symbols. , a controller that generates one shift clock and a number of determination clocks and counter clocks corresponding to the total number of words in the word dictionary memory each time m types of candidates for one character are input by the input device; an address counter of the word dictionary memory that performs a reset in synchronization with a shift clock and a count-up in synchronization with the counter clock; The first, second, . 1st and 2nd characters of character data...
...The character at the corresponding position corresponding to the nth character is the first character.
2nd: 1st character that outputs a match signal when it matches any character at the same position in the m-th candidate shift register, and outputs a match signal and the remaining symbol when it matches the residual symbol.・2nd character......Nth character comparison circuit, and a match signal from all of the first and second characters...Nth character comparison circuits in synchronization with the judgment clock. a determination circuit that determines that a word existing in the word dictionary memory has appeared in a character string input by the input device when a word is detected; and a word that calculates a word length based on the residual detection signal. A word dictionary search device comprising: a length calculation circuit.