JPH0113145B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] <Technical Field> The present invention provides a Japanese information processing device that uses a kana-kanji conversion method based on inputting phrase segments, and each time the conversion process for one phrase is completed, the next input This paper relates to a predictive conversion method that predicts phrases that are likely to occur.

<Prior art> As one method of inputting a Japanese sentence in kana notation and converting it into a sentence containing kana and kanji, there is a known kana-kanji conversion method in which the conversion is performed by inputting phrases in units of phrases using phrase delimiters, etc. It is being Now, when creating sentences using kana-kanji conversion, it is natural to think that the same combination of clauses will be used many times. However, according to the conventional kana-kanji conversion method, it was necessary to repeat the conversion operation for each clause, and to repeat the kana input and conversion operations each time for the same combination of clauses.

<Purpose> The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and when creating a sentence by converting kana to kanji, each time the conversion process for a phrase is completed, the probability of the next input is calculated. The purpose is to provide a predictive conversion method for kana-kanji conversion processing that simplifies kana input and conversion processing operations by predicting and outputting high-pitched phrases, improving text processing speed and reducing the input burden on the operator. .

According to the present invention, there is provided a storage means for storing information on phrases sequentially determined by a series of operations by an operator, and when the conversion process of one phrase is completed, the phrase information and the phrase information in the storage means are As a result, if there is a phrase in the storage means that is equivalent to the phrase for which the conversion process has been completed at the moment, the phrase is input immediately after the phrase that is considered to be equivalent in the previous sentence conversion process. The next kana input and conversion processing operation is omitted because the phrase that has been selected and determined is predicted and output as a phrase that is likely to be the next input phrase based on the current conversion operation. It is possible to improve the efficiency of writing sentences by converting kana to kanji.

<Example> Hereinafter, an example of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

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

In Figure 1, 1 is a control unit including a microcomputer (CPU), 2 is a display unit such as a CRT,
Reference numeral 3 designates an input unit such as a keyboard, 4 an output unit such as a printer, and 5 an internal or external storage unit, which includes a storage means (prediction buffer) 51 for storing sequentially determined phrase information.

Further, the input unit 3 has a kana key group 11, a numeric key group 12, and a function key group 13, as shown in FIG.
and a homophone candidate selection key 15.

Next, the operation of the apparatus configured as described above will be explained using the text conversion operation shown in FIG. 2 as an example.

Note that the conversion processing operation according to the present invention is executed under the control of the control section 1 which operates according to the operation flow diagram shown in FIG.

Now, operate the kana key 11 in the input device 3,
Input a kana string (step n5 in Figure 8, hereinafter step ni will be simply referred to as ni), and when inputting one phrase is completed, operate the conversion start key in the function key group 13 to instruct conversion (n6 ), the input kana string is subjected to kana-kanji conversion processing by the control unit 1 and converted into kanji (n7), and the result is displayed on the display unit 2. At this time, if there are homophones, they will also be displayed (n8, n9). The operator selects the correct spelling from among them using the homophone candidate selection key 15 and the number key 1.
It is specified by selecting and inputting a combination of 2 (n10). The display transition during the above operation is shown in Figure 4. Figure 4a shows the state in which the kana "Totsukiyoken" has been input, and (b) shows the state in which the correct notation has been selected from the homophone candidates after conversion has been specified. , (c) show the kana input status of the next clause.

By repeating the above operations, a series of text conversions is performed, and the results are read into a predetermined area of the storage unit 5 as converted texts (n11).

Furthermore, each time a phrase is determined by the above conversion process, the phrase information is stored in the prediction buffer 51 provided in the storage unit 5 (n12).
Note that the bunsetsu information is composed of notation-related information, grammatical information, and combination information with the bunsetsu converted immediately before the bunsetsu, and includes at least bunsetsu notation information.

Furthermore, each time the conversion of one phrase is completed, it is searched and checked to see if a phrase equivalent to the determined phrase is stored in the prediction buffer 51, and it is determined whether there is a prediction candidate ( n13, n14) If there is a prediction candidate, that phrase is predicted as the next phrase to be input (predicted phrase) and displayed on the display unit 2 (n15).

Next, these operations will be explained in detail with reference to FIG.

FIG. 5a shows the initial state of the prediction buffer 51, in which the contents are empty. This state is, for example, the state immediately before starting text conversion, or the state where the clearing operation of the prediction buffer 51 is executed (n3,
n4) Corresponds to the state immediately after.

Now, when the sentences are converted according to the example sentences shown in FIG. After the next clause ``practical'' was determined in the same way,
It is stored in the prediction buffer 51 (FIG. 5b). The number of clauses in the buffer 51 immediately after storing the clauses is 2.
If it is less than 1, it is impossible to predict the next clause.
A search and matching operation with the prediction buffer 51 is not performed.

Next, determine the “new patent rights” and calculate the predicted buffer 51
Then, the phrase just determined, ie, ``of the patent right'' is compared with the contents of the previous prediction buffer 51, ie, ``patent right'' and ``practical use.'' in this case,
Since there is no match, the prediction for the next clause does not hold.

Hereinafter, assuming that the conversion has proceeded in the same manner up to the end of the first line in FIG. 2, the stored contents of the prediction buffer 51 will be in the state shown in FIG. 5c.

Next, the first phrase "patent rights" in the second line in FIG. 2 is determined, and when the prediction buffer 51 is searched and verified, it matches the stored content marked with "O" as shown in FIG. 5d. Therefore, at this time, the next stored content, ``practical'' marked with ``△'', is displayed on the display unit 2 as a predicted conversion phrase. The display state at this time is shown in FIG.

If the phrase to be input next is equal to the predicted phrase, instead of inputting kana for the conversion, by inputting the predicted candidate selection key 14 and the predicted candidate number shown in FIG. , determine the clause (n16, n17).

In this case, since it matches the prediction, "practical" is determined, and the predicted candidate is incorporated into the converted text and stored in the prediction buffer 51. If the predicted phrase and the phrase to be input are not equal, a conversion operation using normal kana input is performed.
After that, a similar search is performed, and as shown in Figure 5e, there is a match with "Practical" (marked "〇"), so "New patent rights" marked "△" is selected as a predictive conversion candidate.
will be displayed, and this prediction candidate will also be used. The same applies to "implementation" and "situation".

Regarding ``situation'', the predicted clause is ``situation'' as shown in Figure 5f, but in this case, after selecting and determining this ``situation'' (n17), the particle ``situation'' is By performing an input operation that adds only ``wo'', the phrase ``situation wo'' can be obtained (n18, n19). After selecting and determining the predicted kanji notation in this way, it is also possible to perform correction operations such as addition or deletion to obtain the required notation at that time.

FIG. 7 shows the result of converting the example sentence shown in FIG. 2 by performing the operations described above. In this Figure 7, the "/" mark indicates the boundary between phrases,
This mark is inserted for explanation purposes and has nothing to do with the meaning of the sentence or the conversion process. Similarly, the underlined portions in the figure are used only to indicate the portions that have been converted using predictive conversion candidates.

As is clear from FIG. 7 above, the underlined portions were created without any key input operations such as kana key input operations, which means that the number of key inputs has been significantly reduced.

According to the embodiment of the present invention, all matching clauses are covered in the search in the prediction buffer 51 described above. In that case, multiple predictive conversion candidates will be displayed.

However, if the same phrase exists among multiple candidates, one phrase is displayed as the representative form to avoid duplication.

Further, it is desirable that the initial setting of the predicted battle 51 can be executed at a time when the operator deems it necessary.

The above explanation has been given using Japanese language processing, particularly kana-kanji conversion, as an example, but this method can be applied not only to Japanese information processing but also to language processing devices other than Japanese. Taking an English word processor as an example, by replacing the concept of phrase in this explanation with one word, similar predictions can be made for data that may be input next.

The features of the embodiment of the present invention described above are listed below.

(1) Generally, when considering a group of sentences,
It seems likely that certain compound words and similar expressions will appear repeatedly. Naturally, the content of these compound words and expressions differs from sentence to sentence. Therefore, according to the embodiment of the present invention, predictive conversion with a high accuracy rate can be achieved by utilizing the former property, and the latter property can be flexibly handled by using already input phrases. .

(2) If predictive conversion is available, the burden on the operator is reduced because the required phrase can be obtained with far fewer key operations than inputting kana individually and performing a series of conversion operations. Particularly for words for which there are many homophone candidates, the homophone selection work can also be omitted, which is more effective than a normal conversion operation. Conventionally, as a means of omitting key operations, there is a method of using temporary registration called a glossary, in which frequently used kanji strings are registered in advance, and their contents are called up by inputting an index. However, in this method, the operator must judge the content to be registered for each sentence, and there is a burden of having to memorize the registration work and the index for retrieval.

In contrast, according to the embodiment of the present invention, by utilizing the feature (1) described above, key operations can be omitted without imposing the above-mentioned burden on the operator.

(3) The embodiments of the present invention are highly compatible with general kana-kanji conversion methods. For example, in the general Kana-Kanji conversion method, post-conversion editing processing,
The conversion results are often stored on some kind of storage device for output processing, etc., but the contents of this are used as the contents of the buffer described in this example, and the predictive conversion function of this example is added. It's easy.

In addition, the general operating procedure for kana-kanji conversion, ie, "kana input → conversion specification → homophone selection → decision"
However, by simply adding the procedure of ``judging next clause prediction candidates'', an effective function can be provided without impairing the flow of operations or placing a burden on the operator.

<Effects> As described above, according to the present invention, each time the conversion process for a phrase is completed, the phrase that is likely to be input next is predicted and output.
It is possible to improve the text processing speed and reduce the input burden on the operator, and as a result, the efficiency of text creation through kana-kanji conversion is improved.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Figure 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention, Figure 2 is a diagram showing an example of text to be created, and Figure 3 is a diagram showing an example of text to be created.
The figure is a plan view showing an example of the input section, Figures 4 to 7.
Each figure is a diagram for explaining the operation of an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 8 is an operation flow diagram showing the predictive conversion processing flow. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1...Control part, 2...Display part, 3...Input part, 4...Output part, 5...Storage unit, 51...Storage means (prediction buffer).

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. In a kana-kanji conversion method based on inputting phrase segments, information on determined phrases is sequentially stored in a storage means, and the phrase information is stored in response to completion of the conversion process for one phrase. and the bunsetsu information in the storage means, and if a bunsetsu equivalent to the bunsetsu for which the conversion process has been completed at the present time exists in the storage means, as a result of the matching, the equivalent bunsetsu information existing in the storage means is The phrase that was input and determined immediately after,
A predictive conversion method characterized by predicting that the phrase will be input next and displaying it on a display device in a selectable manner.