JPH07334526A - Dictionary retrieval and display device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To reduce the labor of a user at the time of consulting an electronic dictionary. CONSTITUTION:When the user designates a word in a displayed sentence and instructs of retrieval at an input part 1, an estimation part 2 estimates the character of a retrieval designation word in the displayed sentence, a part of speech, for example. A dictionary retrieval part 3 dictionary-retrieves the retrieval designation word. A rearrangement part 4 rearranges the respective items of a retrieved dictionary content in such a way that the item matched with the estimation result of the estimation part 2 appears first. A display part 5 displays the output of the rearrangement part 4. The other constitution for previously executing scrolling unit the item matched with the estimation result comes to the head of a display window and for inversely displaying the item and emphasizing it is adopted. Thus, labor of the user can be reduced since the precise analysis of the word can easily be detected from the displayed dictionary content.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a dictionary search display device for searching and displaying an electronically readable dictionary.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art The work of looking up a dictionary in order to read and understand a sentence is a repetition of the following steps regardless of a native language or a foreign language.

1) For a word that cannot be understood well, the dictionary is searched using the word as a key to find the corresponding item. 2) For each item classified by part of speech, usage, meaning, etc., carefully read and compare the explanations and example sentences to determine which part of speech, usage, meaning, etc. of the actual word corresponds to.

A dictionary printed on paper has been conventionally used for this work, but in recent years, a dictionary search display device using an electronic dictionary has become widespread. In these devices, a digitized paper dictionary is often used as the dictionary.
The dictionary is processed so that it can be searched using the entry word as a keyword when it is digitized, and the corresponding dictionary item is displayed on the screen simply by inputting the word and instructing the search. The advantage is that the search labor is greatly reduced compared to the case where the paper dictionary is used as it is. In addition, there are many devices that can perform advanced searches such as keyword prefix search and suffix match search, which were not possible with paper dictionaries.

Regarding the display of the search result, the conventional dictionary search display device displays the text of the dictionary contents as it is on the screen. The difference from the paper dictionary is that the results are displayed on the screen instead of on the paper. It is used in the same way as a paper dictionary, and each subitem is carefully read and examined to determine what the actual word means.

FIG. 15 is an example of a dictionary content display by a conventional dictionary search display device, in which the same dictionary content as shown in FIG. 5 described later is displayed on a scrollable window. Due to the size limitation of the screen, only the first part is visible, but the rest of the dictionary contents can be referred to by scrolling the screen. The dictionary is an electronic version of a paper dictionary. The contents of one word are divided into multiple sub-items according to the syntactic properties and differences in meaning, and the corresponding parts of speech, translations, example sentences and their Translations and explanations are included.

[0007]

As described above, the conventional dictionary search / display device supports the first step of the dictionary lookup work centered on the search, but the dictionary contents correct the word. The second step in choosing an interpretation was not fully supportive. In fact, the conventional dictionary search display device displays the searched dictionary contents in the same format as the paper dictionary. The dictionary contents of one word are subdivided according to parts of speech and usages, and each subitem includes an example sentence, explanation, etc., so that a large amount of information is displayed for one word. Choosing the right one is a very labor-intensive task, similar to using a paper dictionary. Furthermore, since an electronic display device such as a CRT or LCD generally has a smaller amount of display information than paper and is inferior in viewability, the usability at this stage is often inferior to that of a paper dictionary. In fact, in the display by the conventional dictionary search display device shown in FIG. 15, only a small part of the beginning of the dictionary contents corresponding to “sail” is displayed, and the comment as an intransitive verb or a transitive verb cannot be referred to unless scrolled. . Unless the displayed interpretation is clearly correct, the user must first scroll through the display once from top to bottom to see what the interpretation is.

As described above, the conventional dictionary search display device is
There is a problem that it takes a lot of work to determine the correct meaning and usage of a word from the displayed dictionary contents.

In view of this problem, a dictionary search / display device has been proposed in which the level of displaying the dictionary contents is divided into two levels. The display is divided into two levels, a summary display and a full display. When the user specifies the outline display, the part of speech and the translated word are mainly displayed, and individual examples and explanations are not displayed. If you specify full display, all dictionary contents are displayed without omission. It is assumed that the items will be listed in a schematic display and individual items will be viewed in a full display. However, in the list, only the part of speech and the translated word are visible, so there is not enough information to judge the meaning and usage of the word. As described above, if all the display is selected to see even the example sentences and explanations, it is difficult to compare a plurality of items and determine which is an appropriate item this time because there is too much display information. After all, it cannot be said that the above-mentioned problems have been sufficiently solved.

The object of the present invention is to display the dictionary contents effective for reading and utilizing the contents of words, usages, example sentences, explanations, etc. in order to solve the above-mentioned problems of the prior art, and to display a large amount of contents. An object of the present invention is to provide a dictionary search / display device in which it is easy to find the part of speech, usage, meaning, etc. corresponding to the actual word from the displayed contents.

[0011]

In order to achieve the above object, the dictionary search display device of the present invention has the following configuration.

According to the first aspect of the invention, an input means for designating a word in the display sentence and instructing a search, an estimating means for estimating the property of the designated word in the display sentence, and the designated word. A dictionary search means for performing a dictionary search, a sorting means for sorting each item of the searched dictionary contents so that an item matching the estimation result by the estimating means appears first, and a display for displaying the output of the sorting means Equipped with means.

In the second invention, an input means for designating a word in the display sentence and instructing a search, an estimating means for estimating a property of the designated word in the display sentence, and the designated word. And a display unit for displaying the searched dictionary contents. The display unit emphasizes the items matching the estimation result by the estimation unit when displaying the dictionary contents. I am trying to display it.

In the third invention, an input means for designating a word in the display sentence and instructing a search, an estimating means for estimating a property of the designated word in the display sentence, and the designated word. And a display unit for displaying the searched dictionary contents in a scrollable window, and the display unit matches the estimation result by the estimation unit when displaying the dictionary contents. The screen is scrolled until the item is located at the top of the window.

In the fourth aspect of the invention, the first, second and third aspects are provided.
The estimating means in the invention of 1 is configured to estimate the part of speech of the word instructed to be searched.

[0016]

In the dictionary search display device of the first invention, when the user designates a word in the display sentence by the input means to instruct the search, the estimating means estimates the property of the search designated word in the display sentence. At the same time, the dictionary search means performs a dictionary search for the search designated word. Then, the rearrangement unit rearranges each item of the retrieved dictionary contents so that the item matching the estimation result by the estimation unit appears first, and the display unit displays the rearranged dictionary contents.

Words have various morphological, syntactic and semantic interpretations depending on the surrounding environment, and these interpretations are listed in subdivisions. In the first invention,
If the estimator correctly estimates these properties, the sub-items in the dictionary for the search term that are likely to be correct will be displayed first, and those that are not will be displayed later. It will be. The user need only refer to the first part of the display to find the correct interpretation item. In this way, the amount of information that the user has to refer to is greatly reduced, so that it becomes easy to find a detailed item corresponding to the actual word from the display content.

Even if the designation is erroneous, all the dictionary contents are displayed, and it is not necessary to give a new instruction for reference. The displayed contents are the same as the case where all the dictionary contents are displayed by the conventional dictionary search and display device, except for the order of the detailed items. After all, even in this case, the labor required to find the correct item is almost the same as when using a general paper dictionary or a conventional dictionary search display device, which is one of the advantages of the present invention. Is.

Further, the estimating unit does not need to perform high-level processing as in the machine translation device, and it is sufficient to estimate the possible range according to the contents of the dictionary. Therefore, there is an advantage that various commercially available dictionaries can be used.

In the dictionary search display device of the second invention, when the user designates a word in the display sentence by the input means to instruct a search, the estimating means estimates the property of the search designated word in the display sentence. At the same time, the dictionary search means performs a dictionary search for the search designated word. Then, when displaying the searched dictionary contents, the display unit emphasizes and displays the items that match the estimation result by the estimating means by various methods such as reverse display. By paying attention to the highlighted item, the user can browse only the items that are likely to be correct, and as a result, the effort for selecting the correct subitem is reduced.

The advantages of being able to use a general dictionary and not imposing a burden on the user even if the estimation is incorrect are common to those of the first invention.

In the dictionary search display device of the third invention, when the user designates a word in the display sentence by the input means to instruct the search, the estimating means estimates the property of the search designated word in the display sentence. At the same time, the dictionary search means performs a dictionary search for the search designated word. Then, when the display unit displays the retrieved dictionary contents in the scrollable window, the screen is scrolled and displayed until the item matching the estimation result by the estimation unit is located at the top of the window. Also in this case, since the item having a high probability of correct interpretation is displayed at the top of the window, the trouble of searching for an item having correct interpretation is reduced as in the case of the first and second inventions described above. is there. In addition, the common advantage is that common dictionaries can be used and the user is not burdened even if the estimation is incorrect.

In the dictionary search display device of the fourth invention, the part of speech of the word is estimated by the estimating means in the first, second and third inventions. Since part-of-speech is the most basic of words and is closely related to the interpretation of words, it is possible to greatly narrow down the dictionary sub-items that should be noticed by estimating this, which has the advantage of reducing the burden on the user. is there.

[0024]

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, 1 is an input unit for designating a word in the display sentence to instruct a search, 2 is an estimation unit for estimating a part of speech in the display sentence of the word designated by the input unit 1, and 3 is a dictionary for performing a dictionary search. The search unit 4 sorts the items of the dictionary contents searched by the dictionary search unit 3 so that the items matching the estimation result come first, and the sorting unit 5 sorts the contents sorted by the sorting unit 4. It is a display unit for displaying. When the user specifies a search target word through the input unit 1 and instructs a dictionary search,
The dictionary search unit 3 searches the computerized dictionary using the designated word as a key. Since there are generally multiple possibilities for the interpretation of the part-of-speech of a designated word, the retrieved dictionary contents generally include multiple items. The estimation unit 2 estimates the part of speech in the display sentence of the search target word. The rearrangement unit 4 rearranges the dictionary contents output from the dictionary search unit 3 so that the item having the part of speech estimated by the estimation unit 2 comes first, and sends it to the display unit 5. The display unit 5 displays the sent contents on the screen.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a more specific structure of the embodiment shown in FIG. In FIG. 2, reference numeral 202 denotes a keyboard and 203 denotes a mouse, which constitute an input unit 201 that receives instructions and inputs from the user. A CPU 200 controls the entire system. Reference numeral 210 is a system bus that connects the modules and is used for exchanging addresses, data, and various control information.

Reference numeral 220 is a text storage memory for storing the text to be searched for in the dictionary.

Reference numeral 230 is a search work memory for storing the search target word designated by the user, the words before and after it, and the dictionary search result. The search work memory 230 is divided into seven word memories 2301 to 2307 in this embodiment. Each of the word memories 2301 to 2307 corresponds to one word, and a word area (hereinafter, also referred to as an area A) that stores a surface character string thereof and a first dictionary content area (hereinafter, referred to as an area A) that stores a dictionary search result in a text format. , Area B), a second dictionary content area for storing dictionary search results in a system standard format (hereinafter also referred to as area C), and a part-of-speech area for storing a set of parts of speech that the word can take (hereinafter, area D). It is also divided into four areas. When a certain word is designated as a search target word, as described later, seven word memories 23
Information about the search target word is stored in the central word memory 2304 of 01 to 2307, and information about three words before and after the search target word is stored in the three word memories 2301 to 2303 and 2305 to 2307. Is stored. Of course, if there are not 3 words before and 3 words after the search target word, they are stored within the existing range. In this embodiment, seven words including the search target word are used to estimate the part-of-speech as will be described later, but this is to improve the accuracy of estimating the part-of-speech. It is possible to estimate the part of speech with at least two words included.

Reference numeral 241 denotes an electronic dictionary, which is constructed in a fixed format so that it can be searched by a headword. Reference numeral 242 is a dictionary search engine for searching this dictionary, and constitutes a dictionary search unit 240 together with the dictionary 241.

250 is a dictionary specific format knowledge base,
Information such as a format unique to the dictionary, a part-of-speech system, and symbols is stored for each dictionary, and is used for conversion between the dictionary-specific format and the system standard format. The output of the dictionary search unit 240 is stored in the area B of the search work memory 230, which is a plain text having no structure in general. The dictionary specific format knowledge base 250 divides this into sub-items classified by part-of-speech, and at the same time replaces the part-of-speech with the system standard system to convert it into a system standard format that can be handled by the part-of-speech estimating section 260 and the rearranging section 270, and then, into area C Used to store. On the contrary, it is used for converting the dictionary contents of the standard format stored in the area C into a format unique to the dictionary and storing it in the area B. In this way, by storing the information unique to the dictionary such as the format and the part-of-speech system in the dictionary specific format knowledge base 250 and performing mutual conversion between the dictionary contents and the standard format inside the system, the electronic dictionary of the paper dictionary is converted. Various dictionaries can be used including.

Reference numeral 260 is a part-of-speech estimation unit for estimating the part-of-speech of the search word. The part-of-speech estimation unit 260 includes a part-of-speech estimation work memory 261 and a part-of-speech sequence likelihood knowledge base 262. When estimating the part of speech, first, the search work memory 2
30, all the parts of speech appearing in the area C are extracted for each word memory and stored in the area D. Next, a part-of-speech chart is created with reference to the area D and stored in the part-of-speech estimation work memory 261. Finally, referring to the part-of-speech sequence likelihood knowledge base 262, the column with the highest likelihood is obtained from the possible part-of-speech sequences by dynamic programming, and the region D is overwritten.

The part-of-speech string likelihood knowledge base 262 holds the appearance likelihood for each combination of a predetermined number of parts of speech. FIG. 3 shows a part of the contents of the part-of-speech sequence likelihood knowledge base 262. The part-of-speech sequence likelihood knowledge base 26 of this example
In 2, the appearance likelihood is given to each of the part-of-speech strings of length 3. For example, the sequence of parts of speech "DET DET N" does not usually appear, so likelihood 0 is assigned. Also,
Likelihood of 0.1 is given to the sequence of “N VN”. In addition, DET indicates a qualifier such as a and the, N indicates a noun, and V indicates a verb.

Returning to FIG. 2, 270 is a rearrangement unit.
The rearrangement unit 270 arranges that the item having the same part of speech as the part of speech stored in the part of speech area (area D) of the word memory 2304 in which the information regarding the search target word in the search work memory 230 is held is first. , The dictionary contents stored in the area C of the same place are rearranged. The rearrangement unit 270 is the part-of-speech comparison unit 2.
71 and a rearrangement work memory 272. When the part of speech is designated and the rearrangement is instructed, the rearrangement unit 270 first refers to the second dictionary content area (area C) of the word memory 2304, and first designates the item divided by the part of speech as a unit. Only the items having the specified part of speech are copied to the rearrangement work memory 272. Next, the remaining items are added to the rearrangement work memory 272. When all the items have been processed, the original area C is overwritten with the contents of the rearrangement work memory 272. After that, referring to the dictionary unique format knowledge base 250, the contents of the area C are changed to the original format, the area B is overwritten, and the result is sent to the display unit 280.

The display unit 280 has a display memory 281 and a CR.
And T282. The data given from the outside is temporarily stored in the display memory 281. This data is read from the display memory 281 at a constant time interval and then CR
Displayed on T282.

Next, the operation of the embodiment shown in FIG. 2 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 4 using a concrete example. The following sentences are stored in the text storage memory 220 and are displayed on the CRT 282 through the display unit 280. In summer I often sail ac
loss theInland Sea.

The user inputs the keyboard 202 of the input unit 201.
If "sail" is designated as a search target word using the mouse or the mouse 203, the CPU 200 determines that seven words before and after (summer I often sa) centered on "sail".
il cross theInland) input section 2
01 to the work memory 230 for search, and the words are stored one by one in the word area (area A) of the word memories 2301 to 2307 (step S1).

In step S2, a dictionary search is performed for each stored word. First, the CPU 200 uses the word memory 2
The word (summer) in the word area of 301 is designated as a search word, the dictionary search engine 242 is started, and the dictionary 241
To search. The obtained dictionary contents are stored in the first dictionary contents area of the word memory 2301. Such processing is repeated until the target word memory is changed to 2301, 2302, ... Until reaching 2307. Thus, at the end of step S2, the first memory of the search work memory 230 is
In the dictionary content area of, the dictionary search result of each word is obtained. FIG. 5 shows a word memory 230 corresponding to "sail".
4 shows an example of contents of the first dictionary contents area of No. 4.

Next, in step S3, the obtained dictionary contents are converted into the standard format of the system. While changing the target word memory from 2301 to 2307, the CPU 20
0 refers to the dictionary specific format knowledge base 250, divides the dictionary contents stored in the first dictionary content area, collects them into units with the same part of speech, and converts them into the standard format of the system.
It is stored in the dictionary contents area of. In the case of the dictionary of the format illustrated in FIG. 5, the part of speech is indicated by one or two kanji characters immediately after the “−” (“−name” in the dictionary content of FIG. 5,
"-Auto", "-Other"), and this is used as a trigger to extract the unit. FIG. 6 shows the dictionary contents corresponding to “sail” which are thus converted into the standard format of the system and stored in the area C of the word memory 2304.

In the next step S4, the set of parts of speech that each word can have is obtained by referring to the contents of the second dictionary contents area and stored in the parts of speech area (area D) of each word memory 2301 to 2307. To go. This is also the target word memory 23
While sequentially changing from 01 to 2307, the part of speech described in the dictionary description in the standard format of the second dictionary content area is collected and stored in the part of speech area of the word memory.

Next, in step S5, the CPU 200 estimates the part of speech.
The constant unit 260 is activated to estimate the part of speech of the search target word. Well
First, refer to the part-of-speech area of each word memory 2301-2307.
Create a part-of-speech lattice in the part-of-speech estimation work memory 261
To do. next, Find the part-of-speech sequence that maximizes. Where prob (p
1, p2, p3) is a word with part of speech p1, p2, p3
P_i is the part-of-speech of the i-th word
It This follows the standard solution of the Markov model
The optimum solution can be easily obtained. Thus obtained
The part-of-speech sequence is overwritten in the part-of-speech area of the word memory. This
At the stage of, the part of speech of "sail" becomes "vi" (intransitive)
The part-of-speech “v” is estimated in the part-of-speech area of the word memory 2304.
Only i "(intransitive) is stored as the estimation result.
Oh, the part-of-speech of the search designated word is one part-of-speech corresponding to the optimal solution.
Not only that, but also the top several parts of speech are sought and the probability is high
You may make it store in a part-of-speech area in order.

Next, in step S6, the CPU 200 activates the rearrangement unit 270 to rearrange the dictionary contents stored in the area C of the word memory 2304 based on the part-of-speech estimation result. First, the part-of-speech comparison unit 271 causes the word memory 230
Note the first part of speech stored in area D of 4. Then, the part-of-speech of the item initially stored in the area C of the word memory 2304 is compared with the part-of-speech currently under attention, and if they are equal,
The contents of the item are added to the rearrangement work memory 272. If not equal, the same operation is repeated for the next item in the area C. When the above process is completed for the first part of speech stored in the area D, the same operation is repeated for the next part of speech stored in the area D. When the processing is completed for all the parts of speech stored in the area D in this way, only the dictionary items that match the estimation result are stored in the rearrangement work memory 272. Word memory 230 at this stage
The contents of area C of No. 4 are shown in FIG. Note that only the intransitive part of the dictionary content of "sail" is stored. Next, the part-of-speech comparison unit 271 uses the word memory 230.
The part of speech of the item stored in the area C of No. 4 is compared with the part of speech stored in the area D, and conversely to the above case, the contents of the item are added to the rearrangement work memory 272. If they are equal, do nothing and move to the next item. In this way, all the contents of items having a part of speech different from the estimation result are also added to the rearrangement work memory 272. Finally, the contents of the rearrangement work memory 272 are transferred to the second dictionary content area (area C) of the word memory 2304. After all, area C
The contents of are sorted so that the item corresponding to the estimated part-of-speech comes first. FIG. 8 shows the contents of the second dictionary contents area of the word memory 2304 at the time when step S6 ends. It can be seen that dictionary items related to nouns and dictionary items related to transitive verbs have been added.

Next, in step S7, the CPU 200
The content of the second dictionary content area of the word memory 2304 of the search work memory 230 is returned to the original dictionary format. That is, referring to the dictionary specific format knowledge base 250, the part of speech and description format are returned to the dictionary specific content and stored in the first dictionary content area.

Finally, in step S8, the CPU 200 displays the contents of the first dictionary contents area of the word memory 2304 on the display unit 2.
Transfer to 80 and display the result. The display result is shown in FIG. It is the search designation word that is highlighted in black (in the figure, the portion that is highlighted in black is shaded in the drawing creation. The same applies below). The results are displayed in a scrollable window. First of all, note that the dictionary items related to intransitive words have the correct interpretation of the first term. In this case, the user can make a correct interpretation only with the information currently displayed without scrolling to see other items.

On the other hand, the display text In summer I often go to a
sailaround the Kyushu Is
land. When "sail" in is specified as the search designation word, the part-of-speech estimation unit 260 determines "sai" in step S5.
It is presumed that "l" is a noun. It is unlikely that a verb will be suffixed to a determiner ^" a".
It is because it is described in. After that, the display shown in FIG. 10 is obtained through the same process. Note the correct noun item at the beginning.

As described above, by performing part-of-speech estimation and rearranging and displaying the dictionary items that match the estimation, the user's effort for obtaining a correct interpretation can be significantly reduced. it can.

FIG. 11 is a block diagram showing the configuration of another embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG.
CPU 300, input unit 301, system bus 310
The text storage memory 320, the search work memory 330, the dictionary search unit 340, the dictionary specific format knowledge base 350, the part-of-speech estimation unit 360, the inversion unit 370, and the display unit 380. The detailed configuration and operation of each unit except the reversing unit 370 are similar to those of the embodiment shown in FIG. However, areas B and C of the search work memory 330
Can hold display attributes for each character, not just text. That is, it has a character display attribute storage area indicated by diagonal lines in the figure. There are four display attributes: background color, foreground color, underline, and blink. The background color specifies the color of the screen that is the background of the character, and the default is white. The foreground color specifies the color of the text and defaults to black. When an underline is designated (turned ON), an underline appears at the corresponding character position. When blinking is designated (turned on), the character is displayed blinking. The underline attribute and blink attribute are both OFF by default. In this embodiment, only two display attributes of background color and foreground color are used.

The reversing unit 370 determines whether or not the estimation result of the part-of-speech estimating unit 360 and the part-of-speech of the dictionary item of interest match, a reversing work memory 372, and a character color reversing unit. 373 and distribution switch 3
And a search work memory 330.
Among the subitems of the area C (second dictionary content area) of the word memory 3304, the foreground color and background color of the character in the item having the part of speech that matches the estimation result of the part of speech estimation unit 360 are replaced.

The operation of the embodiment of FIG. 11 will be described with reference to the flow chart of FIG. When the word in the sentence stored in the text storage memory 320 is displayed through the input unit 301 and is displayed on the display unit 380 and the search is instructed, step S1
At 1, the search designated word and the words before and after it are sent to the search work memory 330 and stored for each word in the word area (area A). The details are the same as step S1 in FIG.

In step S12, the dictionary search result of the dictionary search unit 340 is stored in the area B (first dictionary content area) of the search work memory 330, as in step S2.

In step S13, as in step S3, the dictionary content of the area B of the search work memory 330 is converted into the standard format of the system and stored in the area C (second dictionary content area).

In step S14, as in step S4, a set of parts of speech that each word can have is stored in the part of speech area (area D) of the search work memory 330.

In step S15, as in step S5, the part-of-speech estimation unit 370 estimates the part-of-speech of the search designated word.

In step S16, the display color of the dictionary item of the search designated word having the estimated part of speech is inverted. That is, the match determination unit 371 first determines the word memory 3
The focus is placed on the first item stored in the area C of 304, and it is determined whether the part of speech matches the part of speech estimation result of the part of speech estimation unit 360. If they do not match, the distribution switch 374 is tilted to the (a) side of FIG. 11, that is, the reverse work memory 372 side, and the item is transferred to the reverse work memory 372 as it is and added. If they match, the distribution switch 374 is moved to the (b) side of FIG. 11, that is, the character color determination unit 3
Then, the item is transferred to the reversing work memory 372 via the character color reversing unit 373 and added. The character color reversing unit 373 exchanges and outputs the foreground color and the background color of the display attribute of the input character. By default, the foreground color of characters is black, and the background color is white.
The background color becomes black. After finishing the above, move the focus to the next item.

The above is repeated until the items in the area C of the word memory 3304 are exhausted. As a result, the reverse work memory 3
In 72, only the item having the same part of speech as the part of speech estimation result in the part of speech estimation unit 330 has the display attribute in which the foreground color and the background color are reversed. Finally, the reverse work memory 372
Transfer the contents of to the original second dictionary contents area (area C),
Overwrite.

Next, in step S17, as in step S7, the contents of the second dictionary content area are returned to the original dictionary format and stored in the first dictionary content area (area B). Details are the same as step S7.

Finally, in step S18, step S8
Similarly, the contents of the first dictionary contents area of the word memory 3304 are transferred to the display unit 380 and the result is displayed.

According to this embodiment, only the item relating to the estimated part-of-speech of the dictionary items of the search designated word is highlighted, so that the user can answer correctly by paying attention to the highlighted item on the screen. You can browse only the items that are most likely to be, and the effort to select the correct item can be reduced. Since the items are not rearranged in some cases, the items displayed for determination may not be displayed on the first screen, but in that case, the screen may be scrolled.

In FIG. 11, as a method of emphasizing a part of the display, an implementation method of inverting the background color and the foreground color of the corresponding part has been described, but various methods other than this can be adopted. For example, the above-described underline / blink display attributes may be used, and an emphasis method such as underlining an area to be emphasized or blinking the area may be adopted. For that purpose, the character color reversing unit 373 in FIG. 11 may be configured to turn on the underline attribute or turn on the blink attribute instead of exchanging the foreground color and the background color of the character. There are other emphasis methods such as making the corresponding portion bold, changing the font, changing the size of the character, and changing the color, all of which can be easily realized.

FIG. 13 is a block diagram showing the configuration of still another embodiment of the present invention. As shown in the figure, in this embodiment, the CPU 400, the input unit 401, and the system bus 4 are used.
10, a text storage memory 420, a search work memory 430, a dictionary search unit 440, a dictionary unique format knowledge base 450, a part-of-speech estimation unit 460, and a mark giving unit 4
70 and a display unit 480. The detailed configuration and operation of each unit except the mark giving unit 470 and the display unit 480 are the same as those in the embodiment of FIG.

The mark giving section 470 is provided with a part-of-speech estimating section 430.
The matching determination unit 471, which determines whether or not the estimation result in step S4 and the part of speech of the dictionary item of interest match, a mark giving work memory 472, a mark inserting unit 473, and a distribution switch 474. , The word memory in the search work memory 430 (the word memory 330 in FIG. 11).
Area C of the word memory corresponding to the search designation word corresponding to 4)
Of the items, the invisible control character (scroll position designation character) specified by the system is inserted at the beginning of the item that matches the estimation result of the part-of-speech estimation unit 460.

The display unit 480, when displaying the search result,
If the scroll position designation character specified by the system is included, the display is scrolled to position the scroll position designation character at the top of the window when the display is initialized. If it is not included, scrolling is not performed at initialization.

The operation of the embodiment shown in FIG. 13 is the same as that of the embodiment shown in FIG. 11 except for step S16.
In the step corresponding to step S16, an invisible scroll position designation character is inserted at the head position of the search designation word instead of inverting the dictionary item having the estimated part of speech.

According to the embodiment shown in FIG. 13, the search result is initially scrolled and displayed until the item related to the estimated part of speech among the dictionary items of the search designated word is located at the top of the scrollable window. Therefore, the user
This will save you the trouble of searching for an item that is the correct interpretation.

Although the present invention has been described with reference to some embodiments, the present invention can be variously modified and implemented in addition to the embodiments described above.

First, in addition to estimating the part-of-speech of a word, the estimating unit may also estimate the verb type, which is information about the case governing element.
To do this, the distribution of auxiliary verbs, noun phrases, and prepositional phrases before and after the verb may be observed. For example, if there are no auxiliary verbs and a pronoun phrase and a noun phrase continue immediately after that, it can be estimated that it corresponds to a verb type with two objects. Since the meaning interpretation of a verb often depends on its verb type, by implementing the estimation section to infer the verb type in this way, it becomes easier to find the correct dictionary item.

Instead of using the same dictionary for display for estimating the part of speech, a dedicated dictionary for estimating the part of speech may be provided separately. In the above-described embodiment, a total of seven dictionary searches including the search designated word are required for part-of-speech estimation, but a CD-ROM that is a typical example of an electronic dictionary is generally used.
Since it takes a long time to search in the case of a dictionary, a search of as many as 7 words may worsen the response of the system and may cause stress to the user. By providing a dedicated dictionary used only for part-of-speech estimation and putting it in a storage medium such as a hard disk that can be accessed at high speed, the response speed can be significantly increased. Another advantage of using a dedicated dictionary is
It may be possible to add dedicated information for use in estimating the part of speech. For example, by adding information unique to a word such as storing the appearance frequency for each part of speech of the word and using it, it becomes easier to increase the estimation accuracy of the estimation unit and obtain a correct interpretation of the word.

The embodiment shown in FIG. 11 and the embodiment shown in FIG. 13 may be combined, and the item may be displayed in reverse after scrolling to the position of the item. In such a dictionary search and display device, for example, the display sentence In summer I often sail ac
loss theInland Sea. When "sail" in the inside is designated as the search designation word, the display result is as shown in FIG. That is, the window is scrolled so that the item corresponding to the intransitive word comes to the top line of the window, the item of the noun is scrolled out, and at the same time, the item is highlighted (hatched in the figure). As a result, the dictionary items corresponding to the correct interpretation can be seen at a glance.

In addition, it can be easily implemented in combination with other devices as a dictionary search display device, for example, a detailed display and a schematic display, and automatically cutting out a range of a search target word.

[0069]

As described above, the dictionary search / display apparatus of the present invention estimates properties such as the part of speech of a search designation word and displays the dictionary contents of the search designation word on the estimation result. The matching item is rearranged or scrolled so that it is displayed first, or the item is highlighted so that the user can easily find the correct interpretation of the word. Even if the estimation is incorrect, all the remaining items are displayed, so there is no need to instruct the display again. This is about the same as referring to an item in the rear of the conventional dictionary search and display device, and it is also a great feature of the present invention that the labor of using the device of the present invention is not increased. .

Furthermore, by converting the format of the dictionary between the format specific to the dictionary and the system standard format by using the dictionary specific format knowledge base, various dictionaries including a computerized paper dictionary can be created. , Can be used in a general-purpose configuration.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a more specific configuration of the embodiment of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of contents of a part-of-speech sequence likelihood knowledge base.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of the embodiment shown in FIG.

FIG. 5 is a first search work memory retrieved from a dictionary.
It is a figure which shows the example of the dictionary content stored in the dictionary content area of.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of dictionary contents converted into a system standard format and stored in a second dictionary content area of a search work memory.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of contents of a second dictionary contents area of a search work memory during sorting.

FIG. 8 is a second search work memory at the end of sorting.
It is a figure which shows the example of the content of the dictionary content area of.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an example of a display result of the embodiment shown in FIG.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing another example of the display result of the embodiment shown in FIG.

FIG. 11 is a block diagram showing the configuration of another embodiment of the present invention.

12 is a flowchart showing the operation of the embodiment of FIG.

FIG. 13 is a block diagram showing the configuration of still another embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 14 is a diagram showing an example of a display result of a dictionary search display device in which the embodiment of FIG. 11 and the embodiment of FIG. 13 are combined.

FIG. 15 is a diagram showing an example of a display result of a conventional dictionary search display device.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Input part 301 ... Input part 2 ... Estimating part 310 ... System bus 3 ... Dictionary search part 320 ... Text storage memory 4 ... Sorting part 330 ... Search work memory 5 ... Display part 340 ... Dictionary search part 200 ... CPU 350 ... Dictionary specific format knowledge base 201 ... Input section 360 ... Part of speech estimation section 202 ... Keyboard 370 ... Inversion section 203 ... Mouse 371 ... Match determination section 210 ... System bus 372 ... Judgment work memory 220 ... Text storage memory 373 ... Character color inversion section 230 ... Work memory for search 374 ... Sorting switch 2301-2307 ... Word memory 380 ... Display unit 240 ... Dictionary search unit 400 ... CP
U 241 ... Dictionary 401 ... Input unit 242 ... Dictionary search engine 410 ... System bus 250 ... Dictionary specific format knowledge base 420 ... Text storage memory 260 ... Part-of-speech estimation unit 430 ... Search work memory 261 ... Part-of-speech estimation work memory 440 ... Dictionary search Part 262 ... Part of speech string likelihood knowledge base 450 ... Dictionary specific form knowledge base 270 ... Sorting part 460 ... Part of speech estimation part 271 ... Part of speech comparing part 470 ... Marking part 272 ... Sorting work memory 471 ... Matching determination part 280 ... Display Part 472 ... Marking work memory 281 ... Display memory 473 ... Mark inserting part 282 ... CRT 474 ... Sorting switch 300 ... CPU 480 ... Display part

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. An input unit for designating a word in a display sentence to instruct a search, an estimating unit for estimating a property of a word designated by the input unit in a display sentence, and an input unit for estimating a word designated by the input unit. Dictionary search means for performing a dictionary search; rearrangement means for rearranging each item of the dictionary contents searched by the dictionary search means such that an item matching the estimation result by the estimation means appears first; And a display unit for displaying the output of the unit. 2. An input unit for designating a word in a display sentence to instruct a search, an estimating unit for estimating a property of the word designated by the input unit in a display sentence, and an input unit for estimating a property of the word designated by the input unit. It has a dictionary search means for performing a dictionary search and a display means for displaying the dictionary contents searched by the dictionary search means, wherein the display means matches the estimation result by the estimation means when displaying the dictionary contents. A dictionary search and display device characterized by highlighting items to be displayed. 3. Input means for designating a word in a display sentence to instruct a search, estimating means for estimating a property of a word designated by the input means in a display sentence, and inputting means for estimating a property of the word designated by the input means. It has a dictionary search means for performing a dictionary search, and a display means for displaying the dictionary contents searched by the dictionary search means in a scrollable window, the display means for estimating the dictionary contents when displaying the dictionary contents. A dictionary search and display device, characterized in that the screen is scrolled until an item matching the estimation result by the user is positioned at the top of the window. 4. The dictionary search display device according to claim 1, wherein the property estimated by the estimating means is a part of speech. 5. The dictionary search means has a configuration for performing a dictionary search for words before and after the word in addition to the search target word, and the estimating means has a part-of-speech sequence holding an appearance likelihood for each of the part-of-speech sequences. When there is a plurality of parts of speech items in the dictionary contents of the search target word searched by the dictionary searching means having a likelihood knowledge base, the plurality of parts of speech and the search designation searched by the dictionary searching means. For the part-of-speech sequence consisting of the part-of-speech described in the dictionary contents of the words before and after the word, the most likely part-of-speech of the part-of-speech sequence possible by dynamic programming with reference to the part-of-speech sequence likelihood knowledge base 5. The dictionary search and display device according to claim 4, further comprising a structure in which a string is obtained and a part of speech corresponding to a search target word in the part of speech string having the highest likelihood is used as an estimation result. 6. A search work memory comprising a plurality of word memories, each word memory comprising a word area, a first dictionary content area, a second dictionary content area and a part of speech area, and the dictionary search means. Dictionary specific format knowledge base that holds a format unique to the dictionary, a process of storing the search specified word and the words before and after it in the word areas of different word memories of the search work memory, and Processing for causing the dictionary search means to perform a dictionary search for words stored in the word area and storing the result in the corresponding first dictionary content area; and dictionary content stored in the first dictionary content area Is converted to a system standard format by referring to the dictionary specific format knowledge base, and stored in the corresponding second dictionary content area; and in the second dictionary content area of each word memory. A process of extracting a part of speech described in the stored dictionary contents and storing it in the corresponding part of speech area, and giving the estimation part the part of speech stored in the part of speech area of each word memory to the part of speech of the search target word And the dictionary content stored in the second dictionary content area of the word memory holding the search designation word are returned to the original dictionary format by referring to the dictionary specific format knowledge base, and the corresponding The dictionary search display device according to claim 5, further comprising a control unit that performs a process of storing the first dictionary content area.