JPH08147298A - Tense translating device for machine translation system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To easily perform precise translation on tenses. CONSTITUTION: Tense information correspondence tables 21 and 31 register a predicate and tense information showing the tense specified by this predicate while making them correspondent. The tense information is defined by the truth/false combination of events at three timewise positions of past, present and future. Tense information change dictionaries 22 and 32 register a tense change word for changing the tense specified by the predicate and change information showing the change contents of this tense change word while making them correspondent. According to an instruction from a control part 12, a tense translating part 11 performs the translation on the tense based on the registered information on the tense information correspondence tables 21 and 31 and the registered information on the tense information change dictionaries 22 and 32.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a machine translation system for translating a sentence written in one language into a sentence written in another language, and more particularly to a tense translation device for translating a tense.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, in a machine translation system,
Almost no translation of tenses is done. However, with such a configuration, a highly accurate translated text cannot be obtained. Therefore, in the machine translation system as well, it is desirable to perform tense translation as in the case of human translation.

In order to meet this demand, there is a conventional method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No.
A natural language automatic translation system as described in Japanese Patent No. 117559 has been proposed.

This system is described in advance by a heuristic rule in which each translation example of tense is handled individually, and at the time of translation, translation related to tense is executed based on this rule.

In other words, this system is, for example, "English past tense, present perfect tense, past perfect tense in Japanese simply adds" ta ". Or a sentence of the form "~ shiru" that includes the word "kara" in Japanese is in the future tense in English. A plurality of rules such as “” are prepared in advance, and at the time of translation, the translation related to the tense is executed based on this rule.

According to such a structure, the tense can be translated and classified based on the translation rule prepared in advance, so that a highly accurate translated sentence can be obtained.

[0007]

However, in such a configuration, the translation rules are expressed in a form that depends on the individual language. Therefore, regarding individual rules for compensating for the inadequacies of fine translation, , Had to describe each individual example one by one. As a result, it is difficult to cover all the translation rules, which makes it difficult to make a fine translation of the tense.

This is because the conventional structure does not faithfully extract the information on the tense contained in the original sentence and reflect it in the translated sentence. In other words, in the conventional configuration, the translation rule is written after deciding what language is the source language and what the translation language is. If you want to translate or translate into another language, you have to create similar rules from scratch.

[0009]

In order to solve the above problems, the invention according to claim 1 provides information indicating a tense defined by a combination of true and false events at each time position and defined by each predicate. A means for holding and a means for executing a translation related to the tense based on the tense information held in this means are provided.

The invention according to claim 2 is the invention according to claim 1, further comprising means for holding information indicating the content of change of the tense modifier for modifying the tense defined by the predicate,
The translation related to the tense is executed based on the tense information and the change information as well as the tense information.

[0011]

In the invention according to claim 1, the translation related to the tense is performed based on the tense information indicating the tense defined by the predicate. In this case, this tense information is defined by a combination indicating the truth of the event at each time position. As a result, the tense information can represent the tense defined by the predicate accurately and in a form independent of each language. As a result, the tense defined by the predicate included in the original sentence can be reflected in the translated sentence without omission, so that the detailed translation regarding the tense can be easily performed.

Further, in the invention according to claim 2, the translation related to the tense is performed based on the tense information described above and the change information for changing the tense information. This allows
According to the invention of claim 1, it is possible to improve the translation accuracy of the tense.

[0013]

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

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

In the figure, 10 is a translation unit for translating a sentence a described in a certain language A into a sentence b described in another language B. The translation unit 10 includes a tense translation unit 11 that translates the tense of the original sentence a and a control unit 12 that controls the translation operation of the tense translation unit 11. The translation unit 10 is composed of, for example, a computer.

Reference numeral 20 is an information storage unit for storing a tense information correspondence table 21 on the language A side and a tense information change dictionary 22.
An information storage unit 30 stores a tense information correspondence table 31 on the language B side and a tense information change dictionary 32.

In the tense information correspondence table 21, each predicate on the language A side and tense information indicating the tense defined by this predicate are registered in a corresponding manner. Similarly, in the tense information correspondence table 31, each predicate on the language B side and tense information indicating the tense defined by this predicate are registered in a corresponding manner.

The tense information change dictionary 22 contains the language A.
The side tense change word and the change information indicating the change content of this tense change word are registered in a corresponding manner. Similarly, in the tense information change dictionary 32, tense change words on the language B side and change information indicating the change contents of the tense change words are registered in a corresponding manner. The tense change word is a word other than a predicate and has a function of changing the tense defined by this predicate.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of the tense information correspondence table 21 on the language A side. Note that FIG. 2 shows a case where the language A is English as a representative.

The tense information correspondence table 21 shown in FIG. 2 has a plurality of areas ... AR (n), AR (n + 1), ... (n is an integer of 1 or more). Each area ... AR (n), AR (n +
In 1), ..., a plurality of predicates having the same basic form (for example, present form) and their tense information are registered in a corresponding form.

For example, in the area AR (n), "is beaut
Multiple predicates based on iful "is beautiful" (present), "was beautiful" (past), "will be beauti"
ful ”(future),“ has been beautiful ”(currently completed),“ had been beautiful ”(past completed)“ will hav
“E been beautiful” (future completion) and its tense information are registered in a corresponding form.

The tense information includes past, present, and future 3
It is defined as a true / false combination of events (states indicated by predicates) at two time positions. The truth of the event is indicated by "○", "x", and "-". "○" means
As shown in FIG. 4, when an event occurs at that time position,
“Correct” means “not correct”, “−” means “not correct”.

For example, the tense information of the predicate "is beautiful" is represented by "-○-" as shown in FIG.
This means that the phenomenon of "beautiful" expressed by this predicate is correct now, but uncertain in the past and future.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of the tense information correspondence table 31 on the language B side. In addition, FIG. 3 shows a case where the language B is Japanese as a representative.

The tense information correspondence table 31 shown in FIG. 3 also has a plurality of areas ..., BR (n), BR (n + 1) ,.
.., BR (n), BR (n + 1), .. .. are registered in a form corresponding to a plurality of predicates having the same basic form and their tense information. The tense information is defined in the form of a true / false combination of events at three time positions.

FIG. 5 shows the tense information conversion dictionary 22 on the language A side.
It is a figure showing an example of. In addition, in FIG. 5, the case where the language A is English is shown as a representative.

As shown in the figure, in the tense information change dictionary 22, tense change words and change information indicating the contents of the change are registered in a corresponding manner. In FIG. 4, as the tense modifiers, for example, "not" and "before" are shown as representatives.

FIG. 6 shows the tense information conversion dictionary 32 on the language B side.
It is a figure showing an example of. Note that FIG. 6 shows a case where the language B is Japanese as a representative.

As shown in the figure, this tense information change dictionary 32
Also, the tense change word and the change information indicating the change content are registered in a corresponding manner. In FIG. 6, as the tense change words, for example, “from before” and “unlike now” are shown as representatives.

The operation of translating the tense in the above configuration will be described. That is, in the original sentence a,
The operation when translating the part that defines the tense (predicate and tense modifier) will be described. This translation is performed after the morphological analysis and the syntactic / semantic analysis of the original sentence a are completed.

First, the operation of the control unit 12 in this case will be described with reference to FIG. 7. Note that FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing the processing of the control unit 12 in this case.

In this process, first, the tense translation unit 1
For 1, the processing for requesting the detection of the tense of the original sentence a is executed (step S11). This processing is performed by the tense information translation unit 11 with the original sentence a, analysis information indicating the analysis result,
This is done by passing the language name A and. As a result, the tense translation unit 11 executes a process of detecting the tense of the original sentence a, which will be described in detail later.

When this request processing is completed, the tense translation unit 1
Processing for monitoring whether tense information has been sent from 1 is executed (step S12).

When the tense information is sent, the tense translation unit 1
A process for requesting a translation related to tense is executed for 1 (step S13). This request processing is performed by passing the tense information of the original sentence a and the language name B of the translated sentence b to the tense information translation unit 11. As a result, in the tense translation unit 11, although a detailed description will be given later, a process of translating a part of the original sentence b that defines the tense is executed.

When this request processing is completed, the tense translation unit 1
A process of monitoring whether or not the translation result is sent from 1 is executed (step S14).

When the translation result is sent, a process for requesting the original sentence translation unit (not shown) to generate the translated sentence b is executed (step S15). This request processing is performed by passing the translation result regarding the tense to the original text translation section. As a result, the original sentence translation unit executes the process of generating the translated sentence b using the translation result regarding the tense.

The above is the processing of the control unit 12 in the case of translating the tense. Next, the processing of the tense translation unit 11 in this case will be described with reference to FIG. Note that FIG.
Is a flowchart showing the processing of the tense translation unit 11 in this case.

In this process, first, a process for determining whether the request from the control unit 11 is a tense detection request or a tense translation request is executed (step S2).
1). In this determination, the information sent from the control unit 12 is information consisting of the original sentence a, its analysis information, and its language name A, or information consisting of tense information and the language name B of the translated sentence b. It is made by determining whether or not.

If the request is a tense detection request, a process of reading the tense information of the predicate contained in the original sentence a from the tense information correspondence table 21 of the given language name A is executed (step S22). This processing is performed by extracting the predicate from the original sentence a based on the analysis information of the original sentence a and searching the tense information correspondence table 21 based on this predicate.

When the reading process is completed, a process for determining whether or not the original sentence a includes a tense change word is executed (step S23). This processing is performed based on the analysis information of the original sentence a.

If the tense change word is included, a process of reading change information of this tense change word from the tense information conversion dictionary 22 is executed (step S24). This processing is performed by searching the tense information change dictionary 22 based on the tense change word.

When the reading process is completed, the process of changing the tense information read in step S22 is executed based on the read change information (step S25). When this changing process ends, a process of sending the changed tense information to the control unit 12 is executed (step S26).

On the other hand, if the original sentence a does not include a tense change word, the process proceeds from step S23 to step S26. As a result, in this case, the tense information read in step S22 is sent to the control unit 12.

When it is determined in step S21 that the request is a translation request regarding tense, the tense information given by the control unit 12 is registered in the tense information correspondence table 31 of the language name B given by the control unit 12. The process of determining whether or not it is performed is executed (step S27).

This processing is performed by searching the tense information correspondence table 32 based on the tense information. This search is performed only in the area corresponding to the predicate included in the original sentence a. For example, the predicate included in the original sentence a is “is” in FIG.
In the case of "beautiful", this search is performed only in the area BR (n) of the tense information correspondence table of FIG. This search area BR (n) is determined based on the analysis information of the original sentence a given at the time of the tense detection request.

If the given tense information is registered, a process of reading the predicate corresponding to this tense information is executed (step S28). When this reading process is completed, a process of sending the read predicate to the control unit 12 is executed (step S29).

On the other hand, when the given tense information is not registered, the process of detecting the combination of the tense information and the change information such that the changed tense information becomes the given tense information is executed. (Step S30). Regarding the tense information, this detection is performed only on the tense information existing in the search area in step S27.

By this process, when a combination that gives the given tense information is detected, a process of sending a predicate corresponding to the tense information included in this combination and a tense change word corresponding to the change information to the control unit 12. Is executed. (Step S31).

The above is the processing of the tense translation unit 11 when translating the tense. Next, the above-mentioned tense translation process will be described in more detail using a specific example. In the following description, the translation from English to Japanese will be described as a representative.

First, the original sentence a is "She was beautiful befo
Re. ”will be described. In this case, the control unit 12
When receiving the original sentence a and its analysis information from the analysis unit (not shown), sends the original sentence a, its analysis information, and the language name A of "English" to the tense translation unit 11.

When the tense translation unit 11 receives these pieces of information, it retrieves the tense information correspondence table 21 for "English" to obtain the original text a.
Read the tense information of the predicate “was beautiful” included in. As a result, the tense information "○-" is read.

After that, the tense translation unit 11 searches the tense information change dictionary 22 to find the tense change word "befo" included in the original sentence a.
The change information of "re" is read out. As a result, the change information of "reverse the present of tense information to the past" is read out.

When this reading is completed, the tense translation unit 11
Changes the tense information based on the read change information. As a result, the tense information is changed to "○ ×-". After this, the tense translation unit 11 determines that the tense information “○ ×
-"Is sent to the control unit 12.

When the control unit 12 receives the tense information "○ ×-", the tense translation unit 11 informs the tense information "○ ×-".
And sends the language name B "Japanese".

When the tense translation unit 11 receives these pieces of information, the area BR of the "Japanese" tense information correspondence table 31 is obtained.
(N) is searched and the predicate corresponding to the tense information "○ ×-" is read. As a result, the predicate "it was beautiful" is read out. Then, the tense translation unit 11 sends the read predicate to the control unit 12.

When the control section 12 receives this predicate, it sends it to the original text translation section to request the translation of the original text a. As a result, a translated sentence b "She was beautiful" is obtained.

Next, the original sentence a is "She has been beautifu.
In this case, the control unit 12 will be described.
Sends the original sentence a, its analysis information, and the language name A of "English" to the tense translation unit 11.

When the tense translation unit 11 receives these pieces of information, it retrieves the tense information correspondence table 21 for "English" and extracts the original sentence a.
Read the tense information of the predicate “has been beautiful.” Included in. As a result, the tense information "○○-" is read.

When this reading is completed, the tense translation unit 11
Sends the read tense information “XX-” to the control unit 12. This is because the original sentence a does not include a tense change word.

When the control unit 12 receives the tense information "○○-", the control unit 12 informs the tense translation unit 11 of the tense information "○○-".
-"And the language name B" Japanese "are sent.

When the tense translation unit 11 receives these pieces of information, the region BR of the "Japanese" tense information correspondence table 31 is obtained.
(N) is searched to find a predicate corresponding to the tense information "○○-". However, in this case, the predicate corresponding to the tense information "XX-" is not registered in the area BR (n).

Therefore, the tense translation unit 11 in turn combines the tense information registered in the area BR (n) with the change information registered in the tense information change dictionary 32.
A combination is detected in which the changed tense information is "○○-". As a result, the present of the tense information “○ × −” and the change information “tense information are set to the same value as the past. ] Is detected.

When the tense translation unit 11 detects this combination, the tense information "○ ×-" included in this combination and the change information "the past of tense information are set to the same value as the present value". To do. And sends the tense change word “from before” to the control unit 12.

When the control unit 12 receives the predicate and the tense change word, the control unit 12 sends the predicate and the tense change word to the original sentence translation unit to request the translation of the translated sentence b. As a result, the translated sentence b "She was beautiful from the beginning" is obtained.

According to this embodiment described in detail above, the following effects can be obtained.

(1) First, according to this embodiment, the tense information indicating the tense defined by the predicate is defined by the true / false combination of the events at the three time positions of the past, present, and future. Therefore, the tense can be accurately expressed, and the tense information can be defined in a form independent of each language. This allows
Since the tense defined by the predicate included in the original sentence a can be reflected in the translated sentence b without omission, fine translation of the tense can be performed.

(2) Further, according to this embodiment, since the translation related to the tense is performed based on the tense information and the change information of the tense change word, when the translation is performed only based on the tense information. Compared with, the translation accuracy can be further improved.

(3) Further, according to this embodiment, the tense information changing dictionaries 22 and 32 are used to translate the tense, so that all tenses can be easily covered.

That is, conventionally, a sentence of the form "..." that includes the word "kara" in Japanese is in the future tense in English. , "For each combination of words.

However, with this, only a small number of rules can be described. Even if many rules can be written, it is almost impossible to write rules for all word combinations. That is, it is difficult for the conventional configuration to cover all tenses.

On the other hand, in this embodiment, individual rules can be described in the tense information changing dictionaries 22 and 32 in units of words, not in word combinations. As a result, in this embodiment, it is possible to easily cover all tenses.

(4) According to this embodiment, since the predicate and the tense information are registered in the tense information correspondence tables 21 and 31 in a corresponding manner, the predicate and the tense information can be rapidly converted into each other. can do.

(5) According to this embodiment, since the tense change word and the change information are registered in the tense information change dictionaries 22 and 32 in a corresponding manner, the change information of the tense change word is stored. It can be taken out quickly.

Although one embodiment of the present invention has been described in detail above, the present invention is not limited to the above embodiment.

(1) First, in the above embodiment, the case where the tense information is defined by the true / false combination of the events at the three time positions of the past, present and future has been described. But,
The present invention may be expressed by a true / false combination of events at many time positions or at few time positions.

(2) Further, in the above embodiment, the case of translating the tense based on the tense information and the change information has been described. However, in the present invention, the translation regarding the tense may be performed based on only the tense information.

(3) In addition to this, it is needless to say that the present invention can be variously modified and implemented without departing from the scope of the invention.

[0078]

According to the invention of claim 1 described in detail above, the tense information indicating the tense defined by the predicate is defined by a combination of the true and false events at each time position. The tense can be expressed accurately, and the tense information can be defined in a form independent of each language. As a result, the tense defined by the predicate included in the original sentence can be reflected in the translated sentence without omission, and thus the fine translation regarding the tense can be performed.

Further, according to the invention of claim 2, the tense is translated based on the tense information of the predicate and the change information of the tense modifier. It is possible to improve the translation accuracy regarding.

[Brief description of drawings]

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

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a tense information correspondence table according to an embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a tense information correspondence table according to an embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing meanings of symbols in the tense information correspondence table.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a tense information change dictionary according to an embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a tense information change dictionary according to an embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing the operation of the control unit of the embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing the operation of the tense translation unit of the embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 ... Translation unit 11 ... Tense translation unit 12 ... Control unit 20,30 ... Information storage unit 21,31 ... Tense information correspondence table 22,32 ... Tense information change dictionary

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A machine translation system for translating a sentence written in one language into a sentence written in another language, defined by a true / false combination of events at each time position, and defined by each predicate. A machine provided with tense information holding means for holding tense information indicating tense, and tense translation means for executing translation related to tense based on the tense information held in the tense information holding means. Translation system tense translation device. 2. A machine translation system for translating a sentence written in one language into a sentence written in another language, defined by a true / false combination of events at each time position, and defined by each predicate. The tense information holding means for holding tense information indicating the tense, the change information holding means for holding change information indicating the change content of the tense change word for changing the tense defined by the predescription word, and the tense information holding means A tense translation device for a machine translation system, comprising tense translation means for executing a tense translation based on the tense information held by the change information holding means and the change information held by the change information holding means. . 3. The machine translation system according to claim 1, wherein the tense information holding unit is configured to hold the predescriptor word and the tense information of the predicate in association with each other. Tense translation device. 4. The machine according to claim 1, wherein the change information holding means is configured to hold the tense change word and the change information of the tense change word in association with each other. Translation system tense translation device. 5. The tense translation means, based on the tense information held in the tense information holding means,
By referring to the tense information detecting means for detecting tense information of the predicate included in the original sentence and the tense information detected by the tense information detecting means, by referring to the tense information held in the tense information holding means, The tense translation device of a machine translation system according to claim 1, further comprising: a translation unit that translates a predicate included in the original sentence. 6. The tense translation means, based on the tense information held in the tense information holding means,
When the tense information detecting means for detecting tense information of the predicate included in the original sentence, and when the tense change word is included in the original sentence, from the change information held in the change information holding means, this tense change word Change information detection means for detecting change information of the tense information, tense information change means for changing the tense information detected by the tense information detection means based on the change information detected by the change information detection means, and the tense information detection Refer to the tense information held in the tense information holding means and the change information held in the change information holding means based on the tense information detected by the means or the tense information changed by the tense information changing means The machine translation according to claim 2, further comprising: a translation unit that translates a part of the original sentence that defines the tense. Tense translation apparatus of the system.