JPH10207892A - Multilingual communication system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a multilingual communication system which does not require a special language translation program on a client device and can provide document data described in many languages more speedily. SOLUTION: Natural language document data generated at a request from the client device 103 are sent to the client device 103 and also stored in a document data storage part of a server device 102. Then when the client device 103 requests the document data in the same language, the document data stored in the document data storage part of the server device 102 are read out and transmitted to omit a generating process for the natural language document data, and it becomes possible to send the document data in a short time after a request from the client device 103.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a multilingual communication system having a translation function and capable of providing document data in a desired language.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a system for searching and browsing document data via a communication network, such as the Internet, has become widespread. Such a system,
It comprises one or more server devices for storing various types of document data, one or more client devices capable of displaying document data, and a communication network connecting them. The communication network includes a public line network, a dedicated line network, or a combination thereof. The server device includes a storage device capable of storing various types of document data, and a connection device to a communication network.The client device includes a display device capable of displaying document data, and an input device capable of inputting instruction information of a document to be viewed. And a connection device to a communication network.

[0003] For example, on the Internet, a great number of devices are connected to both server devices and client devices, and their locations are spread all over the world. And
The system is capable of searching and browsing various information in various parts of the world via a communication network connecting them.

In such an Internet, as shown in FIG. 13, each server device 1302 has English,
Document data described in various languages such as Japanese and Chinese is stored. Client device 130 connected to server device via communication network 1301
In No. 3, document data described in these various languages can be displayed in each language. There is also a client device with a built-in language translation program.
If necessary, the document data can be displayed after being translated into a desired language.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION When browsing various document data via the above-mentioned system, particularly a network spread all over the world such as the Internet, a document data provider and a viewer of the document data need to communicate with each other. Often use a different language as their native language. However, writing and understanding in languages other than the native language is often difficult.
To solve this, the following two methods are known.
One is to store a document having the same content as a plurality of document data described in a plurality of languages in a server device, and select document data in a desired language from a client device to thereby obtain a document described in a desired language. This is a method that allows data to be browsed. Another method is to mount a language translation program on a client device and use the language translation program to translate document data transmitted from a server into document data in a desired language. With these methods, document data described in a language other than the native language can also be browsed in the native language. However, even in that case, the following problems remain.

First, in a method of storing a document having the same content as a plurality of document data described in a plurality of languages in a server device, even if a document has a single content, a plurality of documents having the same content described in various languages are stored. There is a problem that it needs to be created as data and requires a lot of cost and labor.

In the method in which a language translation program is mounted on a client device, in order to translate and display all sentences in various languages provided by each server, the client device converts the language from a desired language into a desired language. It is necessary to have a large number of language translation programs that can be translated. This increases the cost of the client device. Further, in a language translation program currently in practical use, there is a problem that a desired translation result cannot be obtained due to the ambiguity originally included in the original document to be translated.

In order to solve this problem, the document data stored in the server device is not a document data described in a natural language but a grammatically and semantically analyzed document data described in a natural language. The obtained intermediate format document data is stored. When there is a request for document data from the client device, the intermediate format document data corresponding to the document data is read from the storage device, and from the read intermediate format document data, the document data described in the natural language requested by the client device is converted. The generated document data is transmitted to the client device. As described above, a multilingual communication system that does not require a special language translation program in the client device and that can easily provide document data described in many languages can be considered.

However, in such a communication system, a program for generating document data described in a desired natural language (hereinafter referred to as a target language) from intermediate format document data (hereinafter referred to as a target language document generation program). ) Performs a complicated process, and it takes a long time to generate a target language document in response to a request from a client device and to transmit the document to the client device.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and has as its object to provide a multilingual communication system capable of transmitting a document in a short time after receiving a request from a client device. I have.

[0011]

In order to achieve the above object, a multilingual communication system according to a first aspect of the present invention provides a multilingual communication system which converts a client device and document data in response to a request from the client device. And a server device for transmitting to the client device. In the client device, the request information transmitting unit transmits, to the server device, document identification information that can specify desired document data and request language information that specifies a description language of the document data,
The reception output unit receives the document data from the server device and performs output processing such as display output, print output, and voice output.

In the server device, the request information receiving unit receives the document identification information and the request language information from the client device, and the intermediate format document storage unit converts a document described in a natural language into a grammar. And storing at least one intermediate format document data described in an intermediate format expression obtained as a result of analyzing the target document, the intermediate format document reading means stores the document data corresponding to the document identification information in the intermediate format document. The target language document generating means for generating target language document data described in a language corresponding to the requested language information from the document data read by the intermediate format document reading means; A writing unit configured to add, to the target language document data generated by the target language document generation unit, an intermediate code generated when the target language document data is generated; By adding the document corresponding information identifying the formula document data and description language, writes into target language document memory means. The target language document determination means is executed prior to the execution of the intermediate format document reading means, and stores target language document data having document correspondence information corresponding to the document identification information and the requested language information in the target language document storage means. It is determined whether or not it is stored.

If it is determined by the target language document determining means that the target language document is stored, the target language document reading means reads the target language document data having the document identification information and the document correspondence information corresponding to the requested language information. Read from the target language document storage means. Then, the document transmitting means transmits the target language document data read by the target language document reading means to the client device.

[0014]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of a multilingual communication system according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a conceptual diagram of a multilingual communication system according to the present invention. The server device 102 converts the document data into
It is stored as intermediate format document data not described in a specific natural language (details will be described later). Also, a target language document generation program for generating document data described in a target natural language (hereinafter, referred to as a target language) from the intermediate format document data is stored. Client device 103
Transmits, via a communication network 101, request information including instruction information of document data and instruction information of a description language of the document data to a desired server apparatus 102. The server device 102 generates document data in the specified natural language from the specified intermediate format document data based on the request information transmitted from the client device 103, and transmits the generated document data to the client via the communication network 101. Transmit to the device 103. Then, the client device receives the document data and performs output such as display output, print output, and audio output.

FIG. 2 shows a block diagram of a server device to which the present invention is suitably applied.

The server device 102 includes a ROM 202,
It comprises a RAM 203, a CPU 204, a display control unit 205, an input unit 206, a communication control unit 207, and a bus 209 connecting them. The CPU 204 executes various controls based on various stored programs, and forms the main body of the operation of the server device 102. The display control unit 205 stores display data and controls a display monitor, and outputs a display to the monitor 208. The monitor 208 can use various display devices such as a CRT display and an LCD display. The input unit 206
It is a keyboard device for inputting stored document data and inputting an instruction to the server device 102. The communication control unit 207 is connected to the communication network 210. The communication network 210 is a public network or a dedicated network, and is a component of the communication network 101. The communication control unit 207 controls data communication between the communication network 210 and the server device 102, and transmits and receives data. The communication control unit 207 is a modem device for connecting to a public line or a dedicated line.

The input unit 206 may be constituted by a pointing device such as a mouse device, a voice input device, various input devices such as a touch panel device, or a combination thereof, in addition to the above configuration. The communication control unit 207 includes a transmitting / receiving device for connecting to a wireless public line or a dedicated line,
N (Local Area Network), an Ethernet connection device, a token ring connection device, or an ATM (Asy
Various connection devices may be used, such as a connection device to an nchronous transfer mode network.

The ROM 202 stores various programs, translation dictionary data, and the like.

Various storage units are further formed in the ROM 202. Communication control program storage unit 202a
Stores a communication control program for controlling various kinds of communication via the communication control unit 207, receiving a document data request from the client device, transmitting the generated document data to the client device, and the like. The communication control program and the communication control unit 207 form the subject of the request information receiving unit and the document transmitting unit of the present invention.

Target language document generation program storage unit 202
“b” stores a target language document generation program for generating various target language document data from the intermediate format document data. Note that the target language document generation program forms the subject of the target language document generation means of the present invention. Further, the target language document generation program may generate a target language document from document data described in at least one predetermined language. In the present embodiment, the target language document generation program is assumed to be different according to the type of the target language of the document to be generated, and the target language document generation program storage unit 202b stores at least the target language according to the target language of the document to be generated. One target language document generation program is stored. In addition to the above, instead of using a separate target language document generation program corresponding to each target language, a single target language document generation program capable of supporting all target languages is used, and a target language document generation program storage unit is used. 202
b may store that single target language document generator. Alternatively, using a target language document generation program capable of supporting a plurality of target languages having similar language structures,
It may be stored.

The intermediate format document data creation program storage section 202c stores an intermediate format document data creation program for creating intermediate format document data based on document data described in a predetermined natural language.

The document management program storage unit 202d stores a document management program that is the main entity when storing, reading, or searching for intermediate format document data in the intermediate format document data storage unit 203d. The document management program forms the subject of the intermediate format document reading means of the present invention.

The translation dictionary storage unit 202e stores various data required when the target language document generation program performs processing, such as generation rule data corresponding to the target language and a morpheme generation dictionary. Further, the translation dictionary storage unit 20
2e also stores various data such as a morphological analysis dictionary, syntax rule data, a syntax analysis dictionary, and dependency rule data required when the intermediate format document data creation program performs processing.

The target language document data writing program storage unit 202f adds, to the target language document data, the intermediate format document data from which the target language document data is based and the document correspondence information for specifying the description language, and stores the data. The target language document data writing program, which is the main body when writing to the target language document data storage unit 203e, is stored. The target language document data writing program is
The object of the target language document writing means of the present invention.

The target language document data readout program storage unit 202g searches the target language document data storage unit 203e with document correspondence information for specifying the intermediate format document data from which the target language document data is based and the description language. Is performed, and a target language document data reading program which is a main body when reading out the target language document data is stored. The target language document data reading program is
The target language document reading means of the present invention is the subject.

The target language document data determination program storage unit 202h searches the target language document data storage unit 203e for document correspondence information that specifies the document data from which the target language document data is based and the description language. It is determined whether corresponding target language document data is stored. The target language document data judgment program forms the subject of the target language document judgment means of the present invention.

The ROM 202 is not limited to a ROM,
Magnetic disk drive, magneto-optical disk drive, or C
It may be a storage device such as a D-ROM storage device.

The RAM 203 is used for storing data such as intermediate format document data and for storing various temporary data, and has the following storage units formed therein.

The work memory 203a provides a temporary storage area required by each program during operation. The generated document memory 203b includes an intermediate format document data storage unit 203.
Based on the document data stored in d, the target language document data generated by the target language document generation program stored in the target language document generation program storage unit 202b is temporarily stored. The original document memory 203c stores document data (hereinafter, referred to as original document data) described in a predetermined natural language, which is input data for the intermediate language creation program. The original document data is input to the input unit 206 and the communication control unit 207.
Is entered via

The intermediate format document data storage section 203d stores at least one intermediate format document data. The intermediate format document data storage unit 203d forms the main body of the intermediate format document storage unit of the present invention.

The target language document data storage section 203e stores the target language document data. The target language document data storage unit forms the subject of the target language document storage means of the present invention.

The RAM 203 is not limited to the RAM,
A storage device such as a magnetic disk device or a magneto-optical disk device may be used. Further, when the intermediate format document data is not created, the intermediate format document data storage unit 2
03d may be formed on the ROM 202.

In this embodiment, the intermediate format document data creation program is stored in the server device 102,
Although the server apparatus 102 creates the intermediate format document data from the original document, the server apparatus 102 does not store the intermediate format document data creation program and stores the intermediate format document data created by another apparatus. It may be configured to be input to the server device and stored.

Next, FIG. 3 shows a block diagram for a client device to which the present invention is suitably applied.

The client device 103 has a ROM 302
RAM 303, CPU 304, display control unit 305,
It comprises an input unit 306, a communication control unit 307, and a bus 309 connecting them. The CPU 304 performs various controls based on various stored programs, and forms the main part of the operation of the client device 103. The display control unit 305 accumulates display data and controls a display monitor, and outputs a display to the monitor 308. The monitor 308 has a CRT5 display or LC
Various display devices such as a D display can be used. The input unit 306 is for inputting document identification information of document data, required language information, and the like, and for inputting various instructions to the client device 103, and is a keyboard device.
The communication control unit 307 is connected to the communication network 210, controls data communication between the communication network 210 and the client device 103, and transmits and receives data. The communication control unit 307 is a modem device for connecting to a public line or a dedicated line.

The input unit 306 may be constituted by various input devices such as a pointing device such as a mouse device, a voice input device, and a touch panel device, or a combination thereof, in addition to the above configuration. The communication control unit 307 includes a transmitting / receiving device for connecting to a wireless public line or a dedicated line,
Various connection devices such as an Ethernet connection device for connecting to N, a token ring connection device, and a connection device to an ATM network may be used. Further, in addition to using the display control unit 305 and the monitor 308, a configuration may be adopted in which a print output device or an audio output device is used, and the document data is output in a print or audio output.

The ROM 302 stores various programs.

Various storage units are further formed in the ROM 302. Communication control program storage unit 302a
Stores a communication control program for controlling various kinds of communication via the communication control unit 307 and processing for transmitting / receiving data to / from the server device. The communication control program and the communication control unit 307 form the subject of the request information transmitting unit of the present invention. The display program storage unit 302b stores a display program for displaying the document data received from the server using the display control unit 305. The display program, the display control unit 305, the communication control program, and the communication control unit 307 are the main components of the reception output unit of the present invention.
The request information input program storage unit 302c stores a request information input program for controlling a process in which the user uses the input unit 306 to input document identification information of desired document data and request language information.

The ROM 302 is not limited to the ROM,
Magnetic disk drive, magneto-optical disk drive, or C
It may be a storage device such as a D-ROM storage device.

The RAM 303 is used to store various temporary data, and has the following storage units formed therein. The work memory 303a provides a temporary storage area required by each program during operation. The reception document memory 303b temporarily stores the document data received from the server device. The RAM 303 is not limited to the RAM, but may be a storage device such as a magnetic disk device or a magneto-optical disk device.

Next, a basic processing flow between the server apparatus 102 and the client apparatus 103 will be described with reference to FIG.

First, the client device 103 performs input processing of instruction information of desired document data (S40).
1, S indicates a step. Hereinafter the same). Next, the address of the server device, which is information for uniquely determining the server device where the document data is located on the communication network, is obtained from the input instruction information (S402). In the present embodiment, TCP / IP is used as the address of the server device.
(Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol)
The host name or the IP address specified in the above is used, but any other information that can determine an address on the communication network may be used. Next, from the desired document data instruction information, document identification information which is instruction information of the document data in the server device is determined (S403).
Next, information on a request language that specifies which natural language the desired document data is described in is determined (S40).
4).

Next, the determined document identification information and the requested language information are transmitted to the server at the address determined in S402 (S405). In the present embodiment, as a transmission method to the server device, HTTP over TCP / IP is used.
(Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) is used. Specifically, the client device transmits data in the format shown in FIG. 5A to the server device. "GET" means a data request, and <document identification information> specifies the document identification information determined in S402. <Version information> is HT
TP version information is specified, and <CRLF> indicates a carriage return / line feed character. In <various header information>, header information specified by HTTP is specified as necessary. "Acce
“pt-Language:” is a character string indicating that the requested language information follows, and <required language> specifies a predetermined character string for identifying the requested language. FIG. This is an example of a case where the information is “/pub/sample.html”, the HTTP version is 1.0, and Japanese is the requested language.
Note that the above-described TCP / IP and HTTP are well-known technologies that have already been widely put into practical use, and thus description thereof will be omitted.

The server receives the document identification information of the requested document and the requested language information transmitted from the client in S405 (S408), and generates desired document data in a desired natural language based on the received information. In order to do so, a document data generation process is executed (S409). S
Details of 409 will be described later. If the desired document data in the desired natural language cannot be generated in S409, it is determined as an error (S410). In the present embodiment, this error is determined by referring to an error flag described later. If there is no error, the generated document data is transmitted to the client (S411), and if there is an error, error information is transmitted (S412). The client receives the document data or the error information from the server (S40).
6) Display on the display device (S407).

Next, the details of the document data generation processing (S409) will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

First, an error flag (not shown) formed in the work memory 203a to store an error state.
Is cleared so that no error occurs (S60).
1). In step S602, the target language document data determination program stores the target language document data storage unit 20 of the document data specified by the document identification information and described in the request language.
3e (S602), and if the corresponding document data exists in the server device (S60).
2: Yes), the process proceeds to S609 to read out the document data, and if there is no document data (S602: No), the process proceeds to S609.
The process proceeds to 603. In the present embodiment, the target language document data stored in the target language document data storage unit 203e is one for each descriptive language with respect to one intermediate format document data that is the basis for generating the target language document.
File. The target language document data stored in the target language document data storage unit 203e includes document identification information, which is the file name of the intermediate format document data from which the target language document data was generated, and target language document data. And document correspondence information including the language name of the description language.

FIG. 7A shows the target language document data storage unit 2.
FIG. 7B shows the data structure of the data stored in the target language document data storage unit 203e as shown in FIG. 7B. “/Pub/sample.html” which is the file name of the intermediate language document data as the document identification information indicates Japanese as the language name of the description language of the target language document data.
jp ”is in the document correspondence information field, and the document data field is the intermediate language file“ /pub/sample.html ”
There is target language document data written in Japanese and generated from. Then, the target language document data determination program
In step S60, it is determined whether data having the file name specified by the document identification information and the requested description language name in the document correspondence information exists in the target language document data storage unit 203e.
In step S609, the target language document reading program reads the document data portion into the generated document memory 203b.

In step S603, it is determined whether or not the document data specified by the document identification information exists in the intermediate format document data storage unit 203d. If the corresponding document data does not exist in the server device (603: No) The process proceeds to S610 to make an error, and if an error exists (S60).
3: Yes), the process proceeds to S604. In step S604, the document management program searches the intermediate format document data storage unit 203d for the intermediate format document data specified by the document identification information transmitted from the client, and reads the intermediate format document data into the work memory 203a. In the present embodiment, the intermediate format document data stored in the intermediate format document data storage unit 203d is such that each intermediate format document data corresponds to one file, and the document identification information for specifying the intermediate format document data. Is used as the file name containing the intermediate format document data. in this case,
The determination in S603 is performed based on whether or not a file having the file name indicated by the document identification information exists. In S604, the document management program stores the data of the file in the work memory 2.
03a.

In addition to the method using the file name as the document identification information, a database management program is used as the document management program, and the intermediate format document data storage unit 2 is used.
03d may correspond to a storage area of a database, and instruction information that can specify document data in the database may be used as document identification information.

Next, it is determined whether the read intermediate language format document data can be translated into a target language based on the requested language information received in S408 (S605). In the present embodiment, as described above, since there is an individual target language document generation program for each target language, the target language document generation program corresponding to the requested language information received in S408 is stored in the target language document generation program storage unit. The determination of S605 is performed based on whether or not the information is stored in 202b.

In step S606, target language document generation processing for generating target language document data from the read intermediate format document data is executed. Details of S606 will be described later. S60
At 7, the target language document data generated in S606 is temporarily stored in the generated document memory 203b for transmission. In step S608, the target language document data writing program attaches the document identification information and the language name of the description language to the target language document data generated in step S606 as document correspondence information.
To memorize. In step S610, in response to the determinations in steps S603 and S605, an error flag is set to perform error processing, and the error state is stored.

In step S609, the target language document reading program searches the target language document data storage unit 203e for data having the file name as the document identification information and the language name of the requested language in the document correspondence information. The document data portion is read into the generated document memory 203b. S
If the processing proceeds to step S609, the processing takes a long time S606
Since there is no need to perform the target language document generation processing of
9 can be executed in a short time, and the server device 102 can reduce the time from receiving the request from the client device 103 in S408 to transmitting the data of the generated document in S411.

Next, details of the processing of the intermediate format document data creation program will be described with reference to FIGS. 8, 9 and 10. First, document data described in a predetermined natural language is input from the input unit 206 (S801). The input document data is temporarily stored in the original document memory 203c (S802). This document data is processed as original document data. The original document data is first subjected to morphological analysis processing (S803). In S803, the translation dictionary storage unit 20
Referring to the morphological analysis dictionary stored in 2e, the original document is divided into morphemes, converted into a morpheme sequence, and the part of speech of each morpheme is determined. As an example of generating intermediate format document data from Japanese, if the original document is as shown in FIG. 9A, a morphological analysis result including a morphological sequence as shown in FIG. 9B is obtained by the morphological analysis processing.

Next, a syntax analysis process is performed (S804).
In S804, the syntax rule data stored in the translation dictionary storage unit 202e and the information of the syntax analysis dictionary are applied to the morpheme sequence including the part of speech information analyzed in S803, and the modification relationship between each morpheme is analyzed. Determine the semantic role of the case and form a parse tree. For example, a morphological analysis result as shown in FIG. 9B obtains a parsing result composed of the parse tree shown in FIG. 9C. here,
“S” represents a sentence, “NP” represents a noun phrase, “ADV” represents an adverb, and “VP” represents a verb phrase. Next, a dependent structure analysis process is performed (S805). In S805, S804
A dependency structure is formed based on the parse tree that is the analysis result of. When a dependency structure analysis process is performed on the syntax analysis result of FIG. 9C, a dependency structure as shown in FIG. 10A is obtained. Here, “PRED” represents a predicate, “NOM” represents a dependent structure noun phrase, and “ADV” represents an adverb. Next, the data of the dependency structure obtained in S805 is stored in the intermediate format document data storage unit 203d (S806).

In the present embodiment, the expression of the dependency structure of the sentence is used as the intermediate form expression, and the data representing the semantic content of the sentence expressed by the dependency structure, which is obtained as a result of analyzing the sentence as described above, is converted to the intermediate form. It is used as formal document data. Specifically, it is stored as a set of structural elements 1105 as shown in FIG. Each structural element 110
5 has four items of structure type 1101, case information 1102, dictionary pointer 1103, and number of dependent structures 1104. The structure type 1101 stores a type such as a predicate or a noun phrase as a flag. The case information 1102 stores case type information such as a nominative case, a purpose case, or a form as a flag as necessary. The dictionary pointer 1103 stores a pointer to dictionary data containing information on a word corresponding to the structural element. The number of dependent structures 1104 is
The number of structural elements directly dependent on the structural element is stored. Note that the number of dependent structures 1104 further depends on the structural element that depends on the structural element, that is, does not include the number of indirectly dependent elements as nests.

For example, when the dependency structure shown in FIG. 10A is stored, the data becomes as shown in FIG. 11B. Here, “K1” is the nominative case, “K2” is the objective case,
“K3” indicates the status of the mode. The dictionary pointer is
FIG. 11C shows the dictionary data number 1106 exemplified in FIG. The dictionary data stores a word 1107 in the language used in the original document, its part of speech 1108, a corresponding word 1109 in another language, and various grammatical information. FIG. 11C illustrates an example in which the other language is English. In addition, as the intermediate format document data,
A sentence described in an artificially designed language as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Hei 6-325080 may be used as the intermediate format document data.

Next, the details of the target language document generation processing in S605 will be described with reference to FIGS. The target language document generation process is a process performed by a target language document generation program which is a subject of a target language document generation unit of the present invention.
First, syntax generation processing is performed on the intermediate format document data read into the work memory 203a in S603 (S
1201). In the syntax generation processing, a syntax tree of the target language is generated based on the dependency structure described in the intermediate format document data while referring to the generation rule data, and the word order is determined. Next, morpheme generation processing is performed (S1202), and the ending of the word is changed as necessary, thereby completing the generation of the generated document data. As an example where the target language is English, FIG.
When the syntax generation process and the morpheme generation process are performed on the sentence having the dependency structure shown in FIG. 10A, a target language document generation result as shown in FIG. 10B is obtained. Here, “PR0N” is a pronoun, “V” is a verb,
“ART” indicates an article, and “N” indicates a noun.

In this embodiment, the dependency structure data stored as the intermediate format document data is directly input to the syntax generation processing. However, the dependency structure conversion processing is performed before the input to the syntax generation processing. May go. Specifically, instead of using the dependency structure of the sentence stored in the intermediate format document data as it is, a dependency structure conversion process corresponding to the intermediate format conversion means is performed and converted into a dependency structure corresponding to the target language. Then, it is input to the syntax generation processing.

The morphological analysis processing, syntactic analysis processing, dependency structure analysis processing, syntax generation processing, and morphological generation processing according to the present embodiment are respectively performed by “Eng-Eng Research Institute” and “Kyoto University”. This is a well-known technique disclosed in "Research on a Bulletin System for Science and Technology Literature-Report on Development of Language Processing System" and JP-A-62-203273.

[0061]

As is apparent from the above description,
The multi-language communication system according to claim 1 of the present invention,
The target language document data generated by the request from the client device is transmitted to the client device and stored in the target language document data storage unit. Then, when this document is requested from the client device in the same natural language, the document stored in the target language document data storage unit is read and transmitted, thereby eliminating the target language document data generation processing. Document data can be transmitted in a short time after receiving a request from the client device.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram showing an outline of a multilingual communication system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a server device according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a client device according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a processing flow of a server device and a client device according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of document identification information and request language information according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of a document data generation process according to the embodiment.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram of document correspondence information according to the embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of processing of an intermediate format document data creation program according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 9 is an explanatory diagram for explaining a process of creating intermediate format document data according to the embodiment;

FIG. 10 is an explanatory diagram for explaining an intermediate format document data generation process and a target language document generation process according to the embodiment;

FIG. 11 is an explanatory diagram for explaining intermediate format document data according to the embodiment;

FIG. 12 is a flowchart of target language document generation processing according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 13 is an explanatory diagram showing an outline of a conventional communication system.

[Explanation of symbols]

101 Communication Network 102 Server Device 103 Client Device 202 ROM 203 RAM 204 CPU 202f Target Language Document Data Writing Program Storage Unit 202g Target Language Document Data Reading Program Storage Unit 202h Target Language Document Data Determination Program Storage Unit 203d Intermediate Format Document Data Storage Unit 203e Target language document data storage

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A communication system comprising: a client device; and a server device that transmits document data according to a request from the client device to the client device, wherein the client device specifies the document data. Request information transmitting means for transmitting, to the server device, possible document identification information and request language information for specifying a description language of the document data; and reception output means for receiving and outputting the document data from the server device. The server device, request information receiving means for receiving the document identification information and the request language information from the client device, at least one document data, a grammar of a document described in a natural language, Store as intermediate format document data described in the intermediate format expression obtained as a result of semantic analysis An intermediate format document storage unit, an intermediate format document reading unit that reads intermediate format document data corresponding to the document identification information from the intermediate format document storage unit, and an intermediate format document data read by the intermediate format document reading unit. Target language document generation means for generating target language document data described in a language corresponding to the required language information; target language document storage means for storing target language document data generated by the target language document generation means; The target language document data generated by the language document generation means is added with document correspondence information for specifying the intermediate format document data and the description language from which the target language document data is generated, and is written into the target language document storage means. A target language document writing unit, and a document correspondence stored in the target language document storage unit by the target language writing unit. Target language document determining means for determining whether or not target language document data corresponding to the document identification information and the requested language information is stored based on the information and the document identification information and the requested language information. A target language document reading unit that reads target language document data corresponding to the document correspondence information from the target language document storage unit; and if the target language document determination unit determines that the target language document data is stored, the target language document The target language document data read by the reading means is transmitted to the client device, and if it is determined that the target language document data is not stored, the target language document data generated by the target language document generation means is transmitted to the client device. A multilingual communication system, comprising: a transmission unit.