JPH0821031B2 - Language analyzer - Google Patents

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a language analysis device, and more particularly to a language analysis device useful for an automatic translation device.

Conventional technology For example, when creating a Japanese sentence corresponding to a foreign language sentence such as English, the morpheme of the input English sentence is analyzed, its syntax is analyzed, the sentence structure is converted, and then the Japanese sentence is converted. Generate a translation of.

That is, morphemes such as words constituting an input sentence are analyzed by searching a dictionary, and information such as a part of speech about these morphemes is obtained. After that, based on the obtained information such as the part of speech, the structure of the input sentence is analyzed, that is, the syntactic analysis is performed, by analyzing each word or the modification relation between blocks formed by these words by the grammar rule. . Furthermore, the sentence structure of the input sentence is converted into the order of the Japanese syntax array based on the analyzed syntax, and the Japanese morphemes are generated according to the converted array to generate the Japanese sentence.

In such a morphological analysis performed when generating a translated sentence, a dictionary is searched to obtain information such as the part of speech of a morpheme such as a word. In the case of words such as ordinary nouns and verbs, many of them can be stored in a dictionary, so that they can be easily searched and information can be obtained.

However, there are many types of expressions that represent units such as length, velocity, acceleration, etc., so storing all of these in a dictionary would unnecessarily increase the storage capacity of dictionary information. , Inefficient. This is because many of these units are complex expressions such as m / s, km / s, etc., in which a plurality of expressions representing units are combined.

However, in the case of a device that stores only a part of these units in the dictionary, it is not possible to obtain information on the units of these complex expressions included in the input sentence, and therefore morphological analysis cannot be performed. , There was a risk of performing incorrect language analysis.

Aim The present invention solves the above-mentioned drawbacks of the prior art, and enables morphological analysis of an input sentence containing such a character string without storing all the character strings consisting of complex expressions in a dictionary. It is an object of the present invention to provide a linguistic analysis device capable of performing.

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the present invention comprises an input means for inputting a character string in a predetermined language, a basic dictionary means used for searching the input character string and storing basic data, and an input means. And a analyzing unit for analyzing the character string by searching the basic dictionary unit for the input character string. The analyzing unit searches for a part of the character string by searching the basic dictionary unit for the input character string. In this case, the character string is analyzed by similarly searching the basic dictionary means for the other part of the character string. Hereinafter, a specific description will be given based on an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 1 shows an embodiment in which the language analysis device according to the present invention is applied to an English-Japanese automatic translation device. Note that the present invention can be used in addition to morphological analysis of an English input sentence, and is not limited to an English-Japanese translation device that translates English into Japanese.
It goes without saying that the present invention can be effectively applied to an automatic translation device that translates one language into another language.

This embodiment has an input unit 14, and the input unit 14 includes an input device 10
Alternatively, data is input from the input document file 12. The input device 10 includes, for example, a keyboard having character keys such as alphanumeric keys and function keys, an optical character reading device for reading English text recorded on paper, and the like. The input document file 12 is a storage device in which English text is recorded on a storage medium such as a magnetic disk.

The input unit 14 has an input character string buffer 14a, and the input device 1
0 or an English input sentence input from the input document file 12 is stored in the input character string buffer 14a. The input unit 14 reads the input sentence stored in the input character string buffer 14a and outputs it to the processing unit 16.

The processing unit 16 searches the dictionary file and then the input unit 14
It is a functional unit that performs morphological analysis of the input sentence sent from.
The processing unit 16 has a dictionary information storage table 16a, and stores information obtained by searching a dictionary file 22 or a basic unit dictionary file 26 described later in the dictionary information storage table 16a.

The processing unit 16 searches for a search key character string that is a unit when searching the dictionary from the character strings that form the input sentence input from the input unit 14. The search key character string is searched for by a predetermined search rule in order from the first character of the character string forming the input sentence. For example, the input sentence is divided in order from the beginning of the sentence by a delimiter such as space or command, and the divided character strings are used as search key character strings. In this case, the character strings representing the units of m, km, m / s, etc. are respectively used as the search key character strings. The processing unit 16 sends the search key character string searched for from the character string forming the input sentence to the dictionary search unit 20.

The dictionary search unit 20 searches the dictionary file 22 based on the search key character string sent from the processing unit 16. Dictionary file 22
As shown in FIG. 2, entry and grammatical information such as a part of speech are stored. The dictionary search unit 20 uses the dictionary file 22.
If there is an entry in, the part-of-speech information of the entry is read and output to the processing unit 16. Dictionary search unit 20
As a result of searching the dictionary file 22, when there is no entry in the dictionary file 22, outputs to that effect to the processing unit 16.

The processing unit 16 stores the part-of-speech information and the like retrieved by the dictionary retrieval unit 20 in the dictionary information storage table 16a. Processing unit 16
If the dictionary file 22 does not have an entry for the search key character string, it outputs the search key character string to the unit recognition unit 24.

The unit recognition unit 24 searches the basic unit dictionary file 26 based on the search key character string sent from the processing unit 16. The basic unit dictionary file 26 stores basic unit entries as shown in FIG. If the basic unit dictionary file 26 has a basic unit entry, the unit recognition unit 24 reads the basic unit entry. If there is no entry in the basic unit dictionary file 26, the search key character string is divided into a plurality of character strings as described later, and the basic unit dictionary file 26 is searched multiple times. If each 26 has a basic unit entry, the composite unit information is obtained from these basic unit entries. If there is no basic unit entry in any of the multiple searches, information indicating that the dictionary is not registered is obtained.

The unit recognition unit 24 outputs the basic unit entry, the composite unit information, and the information indicating that the dictionary is not registered to the processing unit 16. The processing unit 16 stores these pieces of information input from the unit recognition unit 24 in the dictionary information storage table 16a.

As shown in FIG. 4, the dictionary information storage table 16a stores and stores the entry of the search key character string and the grammatical information such as the part of speech obtained by searching the dictionary file 22 or the basic unit dictionary file 26 for the search key character string. To do. After the data is stored in the dictionary information storage table 16a, the processing unit 16 outputs the data together with the input sentence to the output interface 18. The output interface 18 is the processing unit 16
The input sentence and the morphological analysis data output from are output to an output device 30 such as a printer or a display, or to a storage file 32 such as a magnetic disk.

Or without providing the output interface 18,
The input sentence and morphological analysis data output from the processing unit 16 are directly input to the syntactic analysis unit (not shown), the syntactic analysis unit performs syntactic analysis of the input sentence, and the translated sentence is generated based on the syntactic analysis. You may do it.

The control unit 28 controls the operation of each functional unit of the present device, and is advantageously configured by a microprocessor.

The operation of this device will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

First, an English input sentence is read into the input unit 14 from the input device 10 or the input document file 12 (100). The input sentence read by the input unit 14 is stored in the input character string buffer 14a. The input sentence stored in the input character string buffer 14a is read and output to the processing unit 16.

When the input sentence is input, the processing unit 16 cuts out a dictionary lookup unit (102). That is, the character string forming the input sentence that is input is divided into search key character strings, which are units when searching the dictionary file 22 or the basic unit dictionary file 26, in order from the beginning of the character string according to a predetermined rule. It It is determined whether there is a divided search key character string (104), and if there is, the search key character string is sent to the dictionary search unit 20.

When the search key character string is sent to the dictionary search unit 20, the dictionary search unit 20 searches the dictionary file 22 for this search key character string (106). Dictionary file 22 as shown in Fig. 2
Determines whether the search key string exists in the entry of (10
8) If there is an entry, the grammatical information such as a part of speech stored in the dictionary file 22 is read, the read data is sent to the processing unit 16, and recorded in the dictionary information storage table 16a (110). Then, the process returns to step 102 and the dictionary unit is cut out again.

If there is no entry in the dictionary file 22, the dictionary search unit 20 returns the search key character string to the processing unit 16, and the processing unit 16
Sends the search key character string to the unit recognition unit 24, and the unit recognition unit 24 recognizes the unit (112).

If the search key character string sent to the dictionary search unit 20 is a word such as a normal noun or verb, there is almost an entry in the dictionary file 22, so grammatical information such as a part of speech is read from the dictionary file 22, and this data Is sent to the processing unit 16 and recorded in the dictionary information storage table 16a. As described above, the dictionary file 22 has entries of words such as ordinary nouns and verbs, and does not have entries of character strings representing units.
Therefore, if the search key character string is a character string representing a unit such as km or m / s, there is no entry in the dictionary file 22, so the process proceeds to step 112 and unit recognition is performed.

The unit recognition operation in step 112 will be described with reference to FIG.

In the search of the dictionary file 22, when the search key character string having no entry in the dictionary file 22 is sent from the processing unit 16 to the unit recognition unit 24, the unit recognition unit 24 points to the first character of the search key character string. Set P (20
0).

Next, the unit recognition unit 24 determines the basic unit dictionary file for the character string starting from the character to which the pointer P is set.
Search for 26 (202). In this search, the basic unit having an entry in the basic unit dictionary file 26 appears as a complete character string in the character string starting from the character set by the pointer P, and the starting point is the character set by the pointer P. Search whether or not. That is, this search searches whether or not the character string of one or more characters starting from the character to which the pointer P is set matches any of the basic units having an entry in the basic unit dictionary file 26. For example, when the character to which the pointer P is set is k, m, s, etc., the basic unit dictionary file 26 as shown in FIG. There is an entry in.

As a result of the search of the basic unit dictionary file 26, the unit recognition unit 24 determines whether or not there is an entry in the basic unit dictionary file 26 (204), and if there is an entry,
The pointer P is advanced by the length of the recognized basic unit (20
8). Therefore, when the basic unit is k, m, s, etc., the pointer P is advanced by one character and set to the next character in the search key character string.

The unit recognition unit 24 determines whether or not there is a character string starting from the character to which the pointer P is set (208). If such a character string is further present, the process returns to step 202 and the character string starting from the character to which the pointer P is set is again used as the basic unit dictionary file 26.
To search. Then, as a result of the search of the basic unit dictionary file 26, it is judged whether or not there is an entry in the basic unit (204). If there is an entry, the pointer P is moved by the length of the recognized basic unit. Proceed.

If there is no character string starting from the character to which the pointer P is set in step 208, the search of the basic unit dictionary file 26 is completed, and the composite unit is successfully recognized.

For example, when the search key character string sent to the unit recognition unit 24 is km / s representing a unit, the km / s itself is a complicated unit, and therefore there is no entry in the basic unit dictionary file 26. Therefore, first set the pointer P to k (20
0) and k are searched by the basic unit dictionary file 26 to confirm the existence of the entry (202).

Next, the pointer P is set to m (206), m is searched by the basic unit dictionary file 26 (202), and the existence of the entry is similarly confirmed. Since the unit recognition unit 24 regards the slash /, the middle black, etc. as a part of the unit, it skips / in km / s and sets the pointer P to s (206). Then, the basic unit dictionary file 26 is searched for s, and the existence of the entry is similarly confirmed (202). These results,
Since entries exist for the k, m, and s by searching the basic unit dictionary file 26, it is determined that km / s is a character string representing a unit. In this way, if there is an entry in the basic unit dictionary file 26 for all the characters that make up the search key string, or for all characters except the symbols that are considered as part of the unit such as slash and center black, When there is an entry in the unit dictionary file 26, the search key character string is determined to be a character string representing the unit.

When the unit recognition unit 24 finishes the search of the basic unit dictionary file 26 and succeeds in recognizing the composite unit, the unit recognition unit 24 sends the obtained unit information to the processing unit 16 and stores it in the dictionary information storage table 16a (210). This completes the recognition of the unit.

In step 204, if there is no entry in the basic unit dictionary file 26 as a result of searching the basic unit dictionary file 26 for the character string starting from the character to which the pointer P is set, this character string is set as the basic unit or Since it could not be recognized as a composite unit, the unit recognition unit 24 sends to the processing unit 16 information that this character string is a dictionary unregistered word, that is, information that does not represent a unit, and performs processing. Dictionary information storage table of part 16
The recognition of the unit is completed by saving the data in 16a (212).

Returning to FIG. 5, when the unit recognition (112) is completed,
Returning to step 102, the processing unit 16 again cuts the dictionary lookup unit.

After cutting out the dictionary lookup unit, the processing unit 16 determines whether or not there is still the cut out unit (104), and if there is no cut out unit, that is, the search key character string, the processing is performed in the dictionary information storage table 16a. The stored information is output to the output device 30 through the output interface 18 (11
Four). This completes the analysis of the input sentence.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the English input sentence is divided into the search key character strings, the ordinary dictionary file 22 is searched first, and when there is no entry in the dictionary file 22, the unit recognition is performed. In the unit recognition, the search key character string is divided and designated by the pointer P, the basic unit dictionary file 26 is searched for each divided character string, and the basic unit dictionary file 26 or the basic unit dictionary file 26 is recorded. It is determined that a string consisting of a series of items recorded in the unit dictionary file 26 is a character string representing a unit.

Therefore, even for a character string representing a complicated unit, the unit can be recognized by combining the basic units stored in the basic unit dictionary file 26, and therefore analysis is performed corresponding to various unit expressions. be able to. Moreover, the basic unit dictionary file 26 only needs to store only basic units, for example, k, m, s, etc., and stores complex units combining these, for example, km, km / s, etc. Since there is no need to store it, the size of the dictionary file can be reduced.

Effect According to the present invention, the basic dictionary means is searched for the input character string, and when a part of the character string is searched, the basic dictionary means is similarly searched for the other part of the character string and the character string is searched. Parse the column. Therefore, it is possible to analyze many kinds of character strings without storing a lot of data in the basic dictionary means.

[Brief description of drawings]

1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a language analysis device according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of data stored in the dictionary file of FIG. 1, and FIG. 3 is a basic unit of FIG. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of data stored in a dictionary file, FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of data stored in the dictionary information storage table of FIG. 1, and FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the operation of the apparatus of FIG. FIG. 6 is a flow chart showing recognition of a unit among the operations shown in FIG. Description of main part code 14 …… Input part 16 …… Processing part 20 …… Dictionary search part 22 …… Dictionary file 24 …… Unit recognition part 26 …… Basic unit dictionary file

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An input means for inputting a character string of a predetermined language, a word dictionary means for storing word data, a basic unit dictionary means for storing data representing a unit, and an analysis of the input character string. The analysis unit, the analysis unit searches the word dictionary unit for the input character string, and when the input character string does not exist in the word dictionary unit, searches the basic unit dictionary unit. As a result, when a part of the character string is searched by the basic unit dictionary means, the basic unit dictionary means is similarly searched for the other part of the character string, and the basic unit dictionary means for the other part. If it is not present in the basic unit dictionary means, the slash and the middle black are also considered to be part of the unit. However, the language analysis device is characterized in that a combination of the part of the character string and the other part including the slash and the middle black is determined as a character string representing a unit.