Translation between natural languages

Claim 1

A method of performing translations between first and second natural languages comprising: a first step of sectioning a source text described by a first natural language word by word and storing the words in storage; a second step of deriving information regarding the parts-of-speech of the stored source words through retrieval of the parts-of-speech information from a lexical dictionary storage in which words are registered together with information regarding the parts-of-speech thereof; a third step of deriving target words in the second natural language which are equivalent in meaning to the respective stored source words in the first natural language; a fourth step of translating a first pattern of a string of parts-of-speech formed by gathering the parts-of-speech for each of the stored source words derived in said second step into a pattern in which the order of the parts-of-speech is in accordance with said first natural language, into a second pattern of a string-of-parts of speech with an order in accordance with said second natural language by referring to a translation pattern table which registers therein the correspondences between first patterns of parts-of-speech strings defining sequences of parts-of-speech of the first natural language and second patterns of parts-of-speech strings defining sequences of parts-of-speech of the second natural language; and a fifth step of generating a sentence in the second natural language by sequencing said target words in accordance with the sequential order of the parts-of-speech in said translated second pattern of the string of parts-of-speech of said second natural language.

Claim 2

A method of performing translations between first and second natural languages comprising: a first step of sectioning a source text described by a first natural language word by word and storing the words in storage; a second step of deriving information regarding the parts-of-speech of the stored source words through retrieval of the parts-of-speech information from a lexical dictionary storage in which words are registered together with information regarding the parts-of-speech thereof; a third step of deriving target words in the second natural language which are equivalent in meaning to the respective stored source words in the first natural language; a fourth step of translating a first pattern of a string of parts-of-speech formed by gathering the parts-of-speech for each of the stored source words derived in said second step into a pattern in which the order of the parts-of-speech is in accordance with said first natural language, into a second pattern of a string-of-parts of speech with an order in accordance with said second natural language by referring to a translation pattern table which registers therein the correspondences between first patterns of parts-of-speech strings defining sequences of parts-of-speech of the first natural language and second patterns of parts-of-speech strings defining sequences of parts-of-speech of the second natural language; and a fifth step of generating a sentence in the second natural language by sequencing said target words in accordance with the sequential order of the parts-of-speech in said translated second pattern of the string of parts-of-speech of said second natural language.

Claim 11

An apparatus for translating a sentence described by a first natural language into a sentence described by a second natural language, comprising: a keyboard means for inputting the sentence described by said first natural language on a character-by-character basis; keyboard interface means for converting the inputted characters from said keyboard means into corresponding codes to be supplied to a processing unit; fixed storage means storing therein a dictionary of words including words in the first natural language, parts-of-speech thereof and corresponding words in the second natural language and a translation pattern table defining correspondences between patterns of strings of parts-of-speech relevant to said first natural language and patterns of strings of parts-of-speech relevant to said second natural language; a random access memory having buffer memory areas for temporarily storing an input sentence and an output sentence; processing means for retrieving said dictionary of words to obtain information of the parts-of-speech and a corresponding word in the second natural language for each word of an input sentence in the first natural language, storing the information in said random access memory, retrieving said translation pattern table to obtain a pattern of a string of parts-of-speech in the second natural language corresponding to the pattern of a string of parts-of-speech of the input sentence in said random access memory, arranging corresponding words in the second natural language according to the retrieved pattern of string of parts-of-speech in the second natural language to compose an output sentence and storing the output sentence in said random access memory; and display means for displaying the input sentence and the output sentence both stored in said random access memory.

Claim 12

An apparatus for translating a sentence described by a first natural language into a sentence described by a second natural language, comprising: a keyboard means for inputting the sentence described by said first natural language on a character-by-character basis; keyboard interface means for converting the inputted characters from said keyboard means into corresponding codes to be supplied to a processing unit; fixed storage means storing therein a dictionary of words including words in the first natural language, parts-of-speech thereof and corresponding words in the second natural language and a translation pattern table defining correspondences between patterns of strings of parts-of-speech relevant to said first natural language and patterns of strings of parts-of-speech relevant to said second natural language; a random access memory having buffer memory areas for temporarily storing an input sentence and an output sentence; processing means for retrieving said dictionary of words to obtain information of the parts-of-speech and a corresponding word in the second natural language for each word of an input sentence in the first natural language, storing the information in said random access memory, retrieving said translation pattern table to obtain a pattern of a string of parts-of-speech in the second natural language corresponding to the pattern of a string of parts-of-speech of the input sentence in said random access memory, arranging corresponding words in the second natural language according to the retrieved pattern of string of parts-of-speech in the second natural language to compose an output sentence and storing the output sentence in said random access memory; and display means for displaying the input sentence and the output sentence both stored in said random access memory.

Claim 13

An apparatus for performing translations between first and second natural languages comprising: means for sectioning a source of text described by a first natural language word by word and for storing the words in a storage; a lexical dictionary storage in which words are registered together with information regarding the parts-of-speech thereof; means for deriving information regarding the parts-of-speech of the stored source words through retrieval of the parts-of-speech information from said lexical dictionary storage; means for producing target words in the second natural language which are equivalent in meaning to the respective stored source words in the first natural language; means for translating a first pattern of a string of parts-of-speech formed by gathering the parts-of-speech for each of the stored source words derived in said second step into a pattern in which the order of the parts-of-speech is in accordance with said first natural language, into a second pattern of a string-of-parts of speech with an order in accordance with said second natural language by referring to a translation pattern table which registers therein the correspondences between first patterns of parts-of-speech strings defining sequences of parts-of-speech of the first natural language and second patterns of parts-of-speech strings defining sequences of parts-of-speech of the second natural language; and means for generating a sentence in the second natural language by sequencing said target words in accordance with the sequential order of the parts-of-speech in said translated second pattern of the string of parts-of-speech of said second natural language.

Claim 14

An apparatus for performing translations between first and second natural languages comprising: means for sectioning a source of text described by a first natural language word by word and for storing the words in a storage; a lexical dictionary storage in which words are registered together with information regarding the parts-of-speech thereof; means for deriving information regarding the parts-of-speech of the stored source words through retrieval of the parts-of-speech information from said lexical dictionary storage; means for producing target words in the second natural language which are equivalent in meaning to the respective stored source words in the first natural language; means for translating a first pattern of a string of parts-of-speech formed by gathering the parts-of-speech for each of the stored source words derived in said second step into a pattern in which the order of the parts-of-speech is in accordance with said first natural language, into a second pattern of a string-of-parts of speech with an order in accordance with said second natural language by referring to a translation pattern table which registers therein the correspondences between first patterns of parts-of-speech strings defining sequences of parts-of-speech of the first natural language and second patterns of parts-of-speech strings defining sequences of parts-of-speech of the second natural language; and means for generating a sentence in the second natural language by sequencing said target words in accordance with the sequential order of the parts-of-speech in said translated second pattern of the string of parts-of-speech of said second natural language.