JPH0821039B2 - Electronic dictionary search device - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic dictionary, and more specifically, to an electronic dictionary search device capable of accurately extracting necessary information from the dictionary. "Prior art" When creating sentences, a dictionary is often used. The “dictionary” is a collection of words, arranged in a predetermined order, and explaining the etymological changes, meanings, usages, examples, and the like. When creating Japanese sentences, a Japanese dictionary is often used. On the other hand, various kinds of dictionaries and dictionaries are used when it is required to create a specialized sentence such as a case where a product description or a technical manual is created.
That is, in addition to the Japanese dictionary, dictionaries (dictionaries) such as Japanese-English dictionaries, English-English dictionaries, and historical term dictionaries are also used. In some cases, what is also called an “internal vocabulary dictionary” that explains special terms (internal terms) that are uniquely created and used by one company may be used. Proposals have also been made in the past for electronic versions of dictionaries and their search systems for processing the contents of various dictionaries by replacing them with electrical signals (for example, T. Ishiwata et al., Basic Specificati
on of Machine Reading Dictionary, Icot Technical R
eport TR-100, 1985, M. Nagao et al., An Attempo to Compute
rize Dictionary Dictionary Data Base, COLING80 19
80). "Problems to be solved by the invention" By the way, in many cases of dictionaries, the purpose is not to know all the contents described in one item, but to know a part of them. That is, a person may look up the meaning from the item, or may look up the antonym as a word having the opposite meaning. In addition, we often use dictionaries to check usage and check kanji writing and English spelling using phonetic clues. Generally, the larger the dictionary, the more detailed the explanation for one item or one headword, and the larger the total amount of sentences. As a result, it takes a considerable amount of time to search the dictionary and find the desired content.
In particular, the structure of the explanation part of the dictionary is currently different depending on the issuer of the dictionary, etc., and a dictionary that is unfamiliar may not be able to find the desired part, or it takes a lot of time to find it. Sometimes I spend. Therefore, for example, in the case of understanding technical contents in a specialized terminology dictionary like translating a scientific and technical article into English and translating it into English, etc., it comes into contact with many different types of dictionaries. There was a problem that it took time to use. Therefore, using an electronic dictionary (electronic dictionary), not only items or headings (hereinafter simply referred to as items) but also attributes such as meanings, antonyms and pronunciations (hereinafter simply referred to as these) An electronic dictionary search device has been proposed that can perform a search by also specifying (expressed as an attribute). According to this proposal, not only the address information about each item but also the address information about each attribute of those items are stored in ROM (read only memory).
It is stored in storage means such as. Then, when the item and attribute are specified, necessary information is searched using those address information as clues, and the result is displayed on a CRT or the like. As a result, the user of the dictionary can obtain information only in the necessary parts. However, according to this proposal, it is necessary not only to set the address information for thousands and tens of thousands of items in the dictionary, but also to add the address information for each attribute belonging to each of these items. The work was enormous. Therefore, such a work cannot be performed for each dictionary, in other words, the range of usable dictionaries is narrowed. Further, when the dictionary is revised, the addresses of the individual description parts of the electronic dictionary are changed, so it is necessary to change the stored contents, which is not realistic in this sense either. Further, if the dictionary becomes large, the address information indicating the position of each attribute becomes enormous, and there is also a problem that the storage means needs to have a large capacity. Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide an electronic dictionary retrieval device capable of accurately and promptly retrieving necessary information from an electronic dictionary. "Means for Solving Problems" The present invention uses an electronic dictionary in which the contents of a dictionary such as a Japanese dictionary are represented by electric signals. That is, in the electronic dictionary search device of the present invention, an electronic dictionary in which the contents of a dictionary such as a Japanese dictionary are represented by electric signals, an item specifying means for specifying an item to be searched in this electronic dictionary, and an explanation of each item The attribute designation means for designating the attribute to be searched from among various attributes such as word sense, antonym, and pronunciation that compose the content, and the identification symbol attached to the attribute description part in the description of the electronic dictionary The attribute search table stored in advance in association with the attribute marked with, the dictionary information reading means for sequentially reading the explanation content of the item designated by the item designating means from the electronic dictionary, and the attribute designated by the attribute designating means. The corresponding identification symbol is obtained from the attribute search table, the description content read by the dictionary information reading means is searched by the obtained identification symbol, and the attribute designated by the attribute designating means It is provided and the attribute extracting means for extracting from the description contents read a part of the description contents related. As described above, in the present invention, identification information such as parentheses used to indicate each attribute in the description of the dictionary is searched for from the sentence, and the target attribute is extracted by this. Therefore, it is not necessary to store address information for each attribute. The structure of the identification information differs depending on the structure of the original dictionary of the electronic dictionary, but depending on the dictionary, both the start code indicating the start position of the information indicating each attribute and the end code indicating the end are extracted. In some cases, these may be used as identification information. When one electronic dictionary searching device accommodates electronic dictionaries of a plurality of systems, it is convenient to prepare an electronic dictionary selecting means for selecting these depending on the application. In this case, the identification information for extracting attributes may differ depending on the type of dictionary, so the search information for each dictionary is stored individually in the attribute search table, and the type of dictionary is selected. If so, the corresponding table may be used accordingly. "Example" Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to examples. FIG. 1 shows an outline of an electronic dictionary system using the electronic dictionary search device of the present invention. This electronic dictionary system is composed of a personal device provided for each desk of a user and a shared device shared by each person as a system. The personal device includes a display 11, a disk device 12, and a keyboard 13 for operating them.
Or it consists of a virtual keyboard and mouse 14 on the display. These are prepared for each desk of the user. Although not shown in FIG. 1, a printer or an image input device may be added to the personal device if necessary. In this embodiment, a dictionary information server 15 is prepared as a shared device. The dictionary information server 15 stores a dictionary commonly used in the system. The dictionary stored in the dictionary server 15 is, for example, “Kojien” from Iwanami Shoten.
And Kyoritsu Publishing Co., Ltd.'s "mathematics dictionary". These dictionaries are electronically filed as electronic dictionaries in which characters and symbols are replaced with code information. They are,
It is purchased as an electronic file from each publishing company, and the contents are not specially processed or special identification information is added on the user side. The disk device 12 described above stores a dictionary that is used by each individual personally, or a dictionary that is stored in the dictionary information server 15 and is modified for personal use. Also in these electronic dictionaries, no special identification information is added on the user side. A cable 16 such as an optical cable is connected between the personal device and the shared device so that each personal device can freely access the shared device. FIG. 2 shows a circuit configuration of an electronic dictionary retrieval device in this electronic dictionary system. A CPU (central processing unit) 21 is incorporated in the display 11 (FIG. 1) of the electronic dictionary and is connected to each unit through a bus line 22. Of these, the dictionary search ROM 23 searches the dictionary for necessary information in the information input from the keyboard (FIG. 1) 13 or in other information obtained based on this information. It is a read-only memory in which the procedure is written. The RAM 24 is a random access memory for temporarily storing various processed data, and the search table stored in the disk device 12 is also stored in this memory. The display device 25 is a portion that occupies the front surface of the display 11, and in addition to the input information, the retrieved necessary attributes and the like are displayed here, for example, as a multi-window. Screen GC
Reference numeral 26 is a controller for controlling the display of the display unit 11. FIG. 3 shows the layout of the keyboard used in this electronic dictionary system, as to its main parts. On the keyboard 13 on the left side of the keyboard 13, some function keys used for a purpose as a dictionary are arranged. Among these, the "word meaning" key 31 is a key for searching the word meaning of the designated item. The “synonyms” key 32 is a key for searching for a term having the same meaning as the designated item. The “antagonist” key 33 is a key for searching a term having a meaning opposite to that of the designated item.
The “noun form” key 34 is a key for searching for a noun form of a specified item such as English. The "part of speech" key 35 is a key for searching for a noun, a pronoun, an adjective, a verb, an adverb, a conjunction, a particle, an auxiliary verb in a designated item. The "pronunciation (reading)" key 36 is a key for searching the pronunciation (reading) of a specified item such as English.
The "word system" key 37 is a key for searching for an example sentence using the designated item. The “plural” key 38 is a key for searching for a plural of a designated item such as English. All of these keys 31 to 38 are keys for designating attributes. In order to facilitate the understanding of the contents of the electronic dictionary, the "how to draw" will be described below with some examples. FIG. 4 shows the most common mode of use when creating an English sentence. When you turn on the electronic dictionary,
A first window 41 for inputting descriptive information is set on the display screen 25A of the display device. In the display portion 42 at the upper part of the first window 41, the disc device shown in FIG.
The types of dictionaries stored in 12 and the dictionary server 15 are displayed. The operator operates the mouse 14 to move the cursor to the place where the type of dictionary to be used is displayed, and presses the button on the left side, for example, to select the dictionary. In this electronic dictionary, multiple selections are possible. Fourth
In the figure, the English-Japanese dictionary and the Japanese-English dictionary are selected. In this state, the operator
For example, enter English sentences. The keyboard 13 is used for this input. By the way, it is assumed that the operator needs to confirm this synonym after inputting the English word "last" meaning "recent". In this case, the operator uses mouse 14 to
Specify the term "st" and press the "sense" key 31 (5th
Figure). Then, the synonyms of the term “last” in the English-Japanese dictionary are searched, and the contents are displayed in the second window 43. The second window 43 is assigned to the upper right side of the first window 41. The operator can confirm the synonyms or synonyms by looking at the contents of the second window 43 and use them to correct the sentence. FIG. 6 shows the structure of search data written from the disk device 12 into the RAM 24 to enable such an operation. The RAM 24 is provided with a dictionary table 51 representing the types of electronic dictionaries and search key tables 52-1 to 52-N corresponding to the respective dictionaries.
For example, when the Japanese dictionary is searched, the second search key table 52-2 is designated by the pointer 53-2 (not shown). When the English-Japanese dictionary is searched as in this example, the first search key table 52-1 is designated by, for example, another pointer 53-1. Which search key table is designated by the pointer depends on what kind of search key the dictionary uses. For example, in the first search key table 52-1 shown in the figure, "

The mark "[synonyms]" is used. Therefore, if you search for the code corresponding to this mark, it means that the synonyms are displayed from this point to the next designated mark. There is no designation. In this case, extraction as synonymous words is performed until the end of the explanation sentence.Of course, depending on the electronic dictionary search device, the maximum number of extracted words is set for one search target, and explanation is made within that range. In the same manner, in this first search key table 52-1, sentences may be extracted.
"(" Is used as a start symbol and ")" is used as a terminal symbol for "antagonism". For the part of speech, the start symbol is "]" and the terminal symbol is ".".
Is. Regarding pronunciation (reading), the starting symbol is "[" and the terminal symbol is "]". Similarly, since the start symbol and the like are determined for each attribute, the device can extract the target attribute by identifying these codes. The start symbol and the terminal symbol in the search key tables 25-1 to 52-N can be set as a combination of a plurality of symbols by logical combination of AND and OR, respectively. By the way, in this electronic dictionary retrieval device, when the operator designates an item, the content is written in the corresponding area of the RAM 24. The contents written in the RAM 24 are associated with the information regarding the attributes specified by the operator, and only the necessary information is extracted. For example, in the example shown in FIG. 4, since the "synonym" key 31 is pressed, the English word "last"
Only the “synonyms” part is extracted as information to be displayed from the various explanations about. Such an extraction function will be referred to as a "structure interpretation function" in this specification. The part that performs the configuration interpretation function (configuration interpreter) is CPU2.
It can be configured by combining 1 with the dictionary search ROM 23 and RAM 24. Since different dictionaries have different expression forms such as "synonyms", the composition interpreter has a function adapted to them. FIG. 7 is for explaining the search operation using this configuration interpreter. First, when the operator presses the attribute designating key for designating the required attribute for the item to be examined, the type of the key is written in the key registration area of the RAM 24 (step). In this case, the data indicating the synonym key 32 will be written in this key registration area. At this stage, the CPU 21 writes the number of acquired dictionary contents, that is, the number N of electronic dictionaries including the corresponding item, in the corresponding storage area of the RAM 24 (step). After this,
An array of size N with an initial element value of nil (zero) is set (step), and a numerical value i indicating the search order of the dictionary is set to 1 (step). Here, the stored content N is compared with the numerical value i (step), and if N is equal to or larger than i (Y), the i-th dictionary content is set in a storage area called content. Is done (step). Then, it is checked whether or not the key is included in the search key table (see FIG. 6) of the corresponding dictionary (step). If it is included (Y), the work for attribute extraction can be performed, so that the identification information indicating the start position is written in the RAM 24 (step). Next, similarly, the terminal symbol shown in the search table is written in the corresponding storage area of the RAM 24 as identification information of the terminal position (step). After this, the pattern matching operation is performed. The details of this pattern matching operation are shown in FIG. That is, the contents of the contents described above are sequentially read, and it is continuously checked whether or not the identification information indicating the start is present therein (step). If it exists (Y), position information indicating the start of the attribute in the contents (for example, information on what character it is) is written in the area w1 of the RAM 24 (step). Next, it is checked by checking each character in turn whether or not there is the identification information indicating the stop at which character from the position where the position information exists (step). If the identification information indicating the stop exists (Y), the position information indicating the stop of the attribute in the contents (for example, the information of what character it is).
Is written in the area w2 of the RAM 24 (step). After that, the character string sandwiched between w1 and w2 in the first content of the content array described in step is stored together with the name of the corresponding dictionary (step). After that, the numerical value i indicating the search order of the dictionary is incremented by 1 to set i = 2 (step in FIG. 7). Then, the work is repeated in order from the steps described above (steps-). As a result of repeating the above-described operation, when N of the stored contents described above becomes smaller than the numerical value i in the step (N), the stored contents N
Is checked (step), and if it is zero (Y), control is returned as an error. If it is not zero, it means that the search is completed (step); N).
It will return the array and return control. In the previous embodiment, as a result of searching only the English-Japanese dictionary, the search operation is completed when the numerical value i is only 1. Therefore, in this case, one window (second window 43) showing the result is set as shown in FIG. 4, and the search result is displayed here. By the way, when the search result is displayed in the second window 43, the operator can further draw a dictionary on this display content. FIG. 9 is for explaining this case. The operator selects the English word "ul" shown in the second window 43.
It is assumed that the operator wants to check the noun form of "timate." In this case, the operator operates the mouse 14 to specify this English word.
Then, the noun-shaped key 34 on the keyboard 13 is pressed (Fig. 10). Then, a new window (third window 61) is opened. And as a search result there "ul
The noun forms "ultimate" and "ultimateness" of "timate" will be displayed. The search operation performed at this time is as described in Fig. 7 and Fig. 8. On the other hand, Fig. 11 shows 9 illustrates another example of use of the electronic dictionary search device of this embodiment, in which the pronunciation of the English word "How" is searched. In this case, the corresponding English word "Ho
"w" is designated by the mouse 14, and then the pronunciation (reading) key 36 on the keyboard 13 is designated (FIG. 12). As a result, the second window 43 is set on the display screen 25A, and two phonetic symbols of the English word "How" are displayed here. In the embodiment described above, the attributes are specified using the keyboard 13, but instead of using such function keys, these are displayed as a menu on the display screen, and this is selected by a selection means such as a cursor or a mouse. You may make it select. Further, in the embodiment, the description has been made assuming that the operator specifies the attribute in consideration of which dictionary exists in which dictionary. However, the electronic dictionary search device itself can display the relationship between the dictionary and the attribute. Good. That is, for example, when the operator designates the name of the dictionary displayed on the display screen with a mouse or the like, the attribute of the dictionary is searched using the search key table 52 shown in FIG. It can be displayed on a part of the display screen. By doing so, for example, when a plurality of English-Japanese dictionaries are stored, it is possible to confirm which dictionary has what kind of attribute, and it is possible to perform an efficient search operation. "Effects of the Invention" The electronic dictionary search device of the present invention described above has the following effects. (1) The present invention has various dictionaries and an item designating unit and an attribute designating unit that can commonly use the dictionaries, and the user does not particularly recognize the whereabouts of the dictionaries and the attributes required from these dictionaries. Only information can be used efficiently. (2) Further, according to the present invention, the description portion related to the designated attribute is searched for on the basis of the identification symbol previously attached to the description content itself in the electronic dictionary. As a result, it is only necessary to register the identification symbol used in the dictionary and the attribute to be searched in association with each other without pre-registering the address information of the description location for each attribute. Preparation is simplified. Also, existing information sources can be used as the dictionary. Therefore, it is easy to create an electronic dictionary. Also, by using a self-made dictionary together, the contents of the dictionary can be adapted to each work environment.

[Brief description of drawings]

The drawings are for explaining one embodiment of the present invention, in which FIG. 1 is a system configuration diagram showing a part of an electronic dictionary system using an electronic dictionary retrieval device, and FIG. 2 is an electronic dictionary retrieval device. FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a circuit configuration, FIG. 3 is a plan view showing a main part of a keyboard, FIG. 4 is a plan view showing a display example of a display screen, and FIG. 5 is an explanation showing a keyboard operation for instructing the attribute display. 6 and 6 are explanatory diagrams showing the structure of search data, FIGS. 7 and 8 are flow charts showing the operation of the structure interpreter, and FIG. 9 is a display screen when further searching the search results. FIG. 10 is a plan view showing a display example of FIG. 10, FIG. 10 is an explanatory view showing a keyboard operation in this case, FIG. 11 is a plan view showing a display example of a display screen as another operation result of the electronic dictionary search device, and FIG. The figure is an explanatory view showing the operation of the keyboard in this case. 11 …… Display, 12 …… Disk device, 13 …… Keyboard, 14 …… Mouse, 15 …… Dictionary server, 21 …… CPU, 24 …… RAM, 25 …… Display device, 25A …… Display screen, 31 〜38 …… Keys for attribute search, 41,43,61 …… Window, 51 …… Dictionary table, 52 …… Search table.

Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification code Office reference number FI technical display area 8420-5L 15/38 C

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. An electronic dictionary in which the contents of a dictionary such as a national language dictionary are represented by electric signals, an item specifying means for specifying an item to be searched in this electronic dictionary, and a meaning of each item constituting the explanation content thereof. Attribute designation means for designating an attribute to be searched from among various attributes such as antonyms, pronunciations, etc., and the identification symbol attached to the attribute description part in the description of the electronic dictionary An attribute search table stored in advance in association with an attribute, a dictionary information reading unit that sequentially reads the description content of the item designated by the item designation unit from the electronic dictionary, and an attribute designated by the attribute designation unit. The corresponding identification symbol is acquired from the attribute search table, the description content read by the dictionary information reading means is searched by the acquired identification symbol, and is specified by the attribute specifying means. Electronic dictionary search apparatus characterized by comprising an attribute extraction means for extracting a part of the description contents related attributes from among the read description contents. 2. In the attribute search table, both a start code indicating a start position and an end code indicating an end position of information representing each attribute are described as identification symbols corresponding to each attribute. The electronic dictionary search device according to claim 1, wherein 3. An electronic dictionary comprising a plurality of electronic dictionaries each composed of a different information source and electronic dictionary selecting means for selecting one or more desired electronic dictionaries from these electronic dictionaries. The electronic dictionary search device according to claim 1, wherein the attribute extraction unit extracts the attribute of the electronic dictionary selected by the selection unit. 4. The electronic dictionary search device according to claim 3, wherein the attribute search table contains search information for each dictionary.