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Description  |
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BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a text displaying and correcting method in
a system wherein a text described in a first language (for example,
English) is automatically translated into sentences described in a second
language (for example, Japanese).
In an automatic translation system employing a digital computer, it is
unavoidable for a person to check and correct result of the translation by
the computer. Heretofore, general-purpose terminal equipment or a word
processor has been used for the correction. Since, however, it does not
have functions suitable for the correction of translation, there has been
the problem that the efficiency of the correcting task is very low.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to provide a displaying and
correcting method which affords functions suitable for a translation
system.
Concretely, an object of the present invention is to provide a displaying
method in which both a text described in a source language and a text
described in a target language are simultaneously displayed on a display
unit, and in which when one text is scrolled, the corresponding text can
be simultaneously scrolled.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a displaying method
in which a phrasal element in one text may be highlighted together with
the corresponding phrasal element in the other text.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a correcting method
in which corrections such as an amendment, insertion or deletion can be
made in the unit of a phrasal element, not in the unit of a character in a
displayed text.
In order to accomplish these objects, according to the present invention, a
sentence in the text of a source language is divided into phrasal
elements, and identifications are assigned to the respective phrasal
elements. The expression "phrasal element" is defined as the minimum unit
having a linguistic meaning, for example, a string of nouns, (an auxiliary
verb+a verb), (an article+a noun), (a preposition+a noun), and (an
adjective+a noun).
Further, in the text of a target language, respective words corresponding
to the aforementioned phrasal elements are assigned the same
identifications as the aforementioned identifications. Both the texts are
retained in a memory and processed by a processor as a series of data
consisting of the identifications and phrasal elements, so that the
corresponding relationship of both the texts is consistently held.
The other objects and features of the present invention will become more
apparent from the following description when read in conjunction with the
attached drawings.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the general arrangement of a machine
translation system according to the present invention;
FIGS. 2(A) and 2(B) are a diagram showing an example of a text transmitted
from a host computer to a terminal equipment;
FIGS. 3(A), 3(B) and 3(C) are diagrams showing the structures of words and
various parameters in a memory;
FIGS. 4(A), 4(B) and 4(C) are diagrams showing examples of text data stored
contents in the text memory;
FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of text display;
FIG. 6 is a diagram of a keyboard panel;
FIG. 7 is a flowchart of the processing of writing the text transmitted
from the host computer into the memory;
FIG. 8 is a flowchart of the processing of displaying the text in the
memory on a CRT;
FIG. 9 is a flowchart of the processing of updating the content of the
memory in accordance with an input from a keyboard;
FIG. 10 is a flowchart of processing of transmitting a revised text to the
hose computer; and
FIG. 11 is a diagram showing an example of data transmitted to the host
computer.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
In the following description, for the sake of convenience, a source
language shall be assumed English, and a target language Japanese.
FIG. 1 shows an example of a system which is used for performing a text
displaying and correcting method according to the present invention. The
system includes a terminal equipment 1 and a host computer 9.
The terminal equipment 1 is composed of a processing unit 2, a memory 3, a
character generator 4, a CRT 5 and a keyboard 6, and is connected to the
host computer 9 through modems 7 as well as a communication line 8.
Translation is executed by the host computer 9, and an English text and
the translated Japanese text are transmitted to the terminal equipment 1.
In the terminal equipment 1, the English text and the Japanese text are
simultaneously displayed, and the user revises the Japanese text. The
revised text is transmitted to the host computer 9, and is stored in a
file.
In the automatic translation processing in the host computer 9, the English
text is analyzed and is divided into elements (called "phrasal elements")
having certain syntactic or symantic. Japanese equivalents, also called
"phrasal elements", are allotted to the respective phrasal elements, and
the phrasal elements are arranged in a sequence acceptable as Japanese,
whereby the Japanese text is generated. The details of this translation
processing are described in U.S. application Ser. No. 415,601, filed Sept.
7, 1982, and assigned to the same assignee as the present invention.
Herein, the phrasal elements are assigned identifications (abbreviated to
"IDs"), and data as exemplified in FIG. 2 is transmitted to the terminal
equipment 1. FIG. 2(A) is an example of English text, and FIG. 2(B) is an
example of Japanese text. A Japanese character is coded with two bytes,
although, in FIG. 2(B), it is indicated by a number of alphabetical
characters according to "romaji" notation. An ESC (escape) denotes the
separation between one phrasal element and the next phrasal element, or
the separation between sentences. In the data, the byte following the ESC
code is the phrasal element ID. At the head of a sentence, the ESC code
and a sentence number are affixed. Since the sentence number is always
held between the ESC codes, it can be distinguished from the phrasal
element ID. The addition of the sentence number make it unnecessary for
the phrasal element ID to be unique in the text. The phrasal element only
has to be unique within each sentence. Accordingly, the phrasal element ID
can be coded with several bits.
The memory 3 includes an English text area 31, a Japanese text area 32, and
an area 33 for storing various parameters. The English text area composed
of 9-bit words, and the Japanese text area is composed of 17-bit words.
They are individually given addresses 1, 2, 3, . . . FIG. 3(A) shows a
word in the English text area 31. The content expressed by the word
differs depending upon whether the first bit D.sub.1 of the particular
word is "0" or "1". When the first bit D.sub.1 is "0", the second to ninth
bits form a code which expresses a character in the text. When the first
bit is "1", the third to ninth bits express a phrasal element ID or a
sentence number. Whether the phrasal element ID or the sentence number is
expressed, is readily known from the following. That is, only a preceding
word in the case where two words having the first bits D.sub.1 of "1" have
occurred in succession is the sentence number. The second bit D.sub.2 of
the word expressing the phrasal element ID is used as a flag which
indicates if the corresponding phrasal element has been revised. Words in
the Japanese text area 32 are shown in FIG. 3(B). It is the same as in the
case of the English text area 31 that the content expressed by the
particular word differs depending upon the first bit D.sub.1. FIG. 4(A)
shows the stored contents in the text areas 31 and 32 of the memory 3 in
the case of FIG. 2.
The various parameters which are stored in the memory 3, are shown in FIG.
3(C). The display start address P.sub.1 of the English text and the
display start address P.sub.2 of the Japanese text indicate the head
addresses of those parts of the respective texts which are to be displayed
on the CRT 5. A cursor indicator P.sub.3 is set to "0" when the cursor
lies on the English text, and to "1" when it lies on the Japanese text.
The cursor address P.sub.4 indicates the address of the cursor on the
text. In addition, the sentence number and the phrasal element ID of the
phrasal element to be displayed unlike the other parts are respectively
stored in a highlighted sentence number P.sub.5 and a highlighted phrasal
element ID P.sub.6.
As shown in FIG. 5, the screen of the CRT 5 is partitioned into an English
text display portion 51 and a Japanese text display portion 52. The
respective portions can display m.sub.1 (characters/line).times.n.sub.1
(lines) and m.sub.2 (characters/line).times.n.sub.2 (lines). Owing to
processing to be described later, when one text is scrolled, the other
text is scrolled interlockingly, so that the corresponding parts are
displayed at all times. Moreover, the phrasal element in the position
where the cursor exists is highlighted (by way of example, it is displayed
at a brightness higher than that of the other phrasal elements). Since, in
FIG. 5, the cursor 53 lies on the phrasal element "by bus" in the English
text, this phrasal element and the corresponding phrasal element "BASU NI
YOTTE" in the Japanese text are highlighted.
As shown in FIG. 6, the keyboard 6 is equipped with character keys 601, and
besides, various function keys 602 to 617.
The functions of the processing unit 2 are (1) the process of writing the
English text and the Japanese text transmitted from the host computer 9
into the memory 3, (2) the process of displaying the texts in the memory 3
on the CRT 5, (3) the process of updating the contents of the memory 3 in
accordance with an input given from the keyboard 6, and (4) the process of
transmitting the (revised) texts in the memory 3, to the host computer 9.
These will be explained hereinbelow.
(1) Writing Transmitted texts from Host computer 9 into Memory 3:
FIG. 7 shows a flowchart of the process in which the English text
transmitted from the host computer 9 is written into the English text area
of the memory 3. Quite the same applies to the Japanese text. In the
figure, symbol I is an index indicative of the address of the English text
area 31, and symbol A(I) indicates the word of the address I of the
English text area 31. After an initial "1" has been first set in I (101),
transmitted data is received byte by byte (102). Unless the end of the
data has been reached (103), whether or not the byte is the ESC code is
decided (104). When it is the ESC code, the ensuing one byte is determined
to be the sentence number of the phrasal element ID. After this byte is
received (105) the word in which the first bit A(I).sub.1 is "1", the
second bit A(I).sub.2 is "0" and the third-ninth bits A(I).sub.3-9 are the
sentence number of the phrasal element ID, is written into the memory 3
(106). When the byte is not the ESC code sentence number or the phrasal
element ID, the byte is determined to be the character code. Therefore,
the word in which the first bit A(I).sub.1 is "0" and the second-ninth
bits A(I).sub.2-9 are this character code, is written into the memory
(107). In either case, after the word A(I) has been written in the address
I, "1" is added to I (108), and the processing flow advances to the
reception of the next byte (102).
(2) Displaying Text in Memory 3 on CRT 5:
FIG. 8 shows a flowchart of the processing of displaying the text. Only the
processing of the English text is illustrated in detail, and the
processing of the Japanese text is omitted because it is similar to that
of the English text. In the figure, F.sub.1 and F.sub.2 are flags which
indicate if characters being processed are to be highlighted. First, "0"
is set in both F.sub.1 and F.sub.2 (201), and the display start address
P.sub.1 and the display end address P.sub.1 +m.sub.1 .times.n.sub.1 of the
text are respectively set in I and IMAX (202 and 203). Whether or not the
word A(I) of the address I is the character code is decided (204). When it
is the character code, this code is sent to the character generator 4, and
the character is displayed on the CRT 5. In this case, when both the flags
F.sub.1 and F.sub.2 are "1" (205), the character is highlighted (206),
otherwise it is displayed in a normal mode (207). On the other hand, in a
case where A(I) is the sentence number or the phrasal element ID, whether
it is the former or the latter can be distinguished by investigating the
next word A(I+1) (208). In the case of the sentence number, it is compared
with the highlighted sentence number P.sub.5 (209). When they coincide,
"1" is set in F.sub.1 (210), and when not, "0" is set in F.sub.1 (211). In
the case of the phrasal element ID, it is compared with the highlighted
phrasal element ID P.sub.6 (212). When they coincide, "1" is set in
F.sub.2 (213), and when not, "0" is set in F.sub.2 (214). The word which
is the sentence number or the phrasal element ID, is displayed as a blank
on the CRT screen (215). After A(I) has been displayed, "1" is added to I
(216). If I is within a display range (217), the flow advances to the
processing of the next word. If I is beyond the display range, the flow
shifts to the process of displaying the Japanese text (218).
(3) Updating Content of Memory 3 in accordance with Input from Keyboard 6:
Inputs from the keyboard 6 are broadly classified into the alteration of
the display range or the highlighted phrasal element consequent upon the
movement of the cursor, and the revision of the text.
First, the movement of the cursor will be described. As cursor moving keys,
there are ones shown at 604-610 in FIG. 6. There will now be explained a
case where the cursor position flag P.sub.3 is "0", namely, a case where
the cursor lies on the English text. Even when the cursor position flag is
"1", operations are similar. When the key 605 is depressed, the cursor
address P.sub.4 is decreased by one. However, when P.sub.4 is (a multiple
of m.sub.1)+1, it remains unchanged. When the key 606 is depressed, "1" is
added to P.sub.4. However, when P.sub.4 is a multiple of m.sub.1, it
remains unchanged. When the key 604 is depressed, P.sub.4 is decreased by
m.sub.1. When the key 607 is depressed, m.sub.1 is added to P.sub.4.
Besides, when the key 608 is depressed, the English text area is scanned
in the backward direction from the current address P.sub.4, so as to find
the word which is the phrasal element ID. The (address of the second
occurring phrasal element ID)+1 is set in P.sub.4. When the key 609 is
depressed, the English text area is scanned in the forward direction from
the current address P.sub.4, so as to find the word which is the phrasal
element ID. The (address of the first occurring phrasal element ID)+1 is
set in P.sub.4. Further, when the key 610 is depressed, the cursor
position flag P.sub.3 is inverted into "1", and simultaneously, the
Japanese text is scanned to find the highlighted phrasal element, the
address of the first character of which is set in the cursor address
P.sub.4.
When the cursor has been moved, it becomes necessary to scroll the screen
or to alter the highlighted phrasal element, so that the parameters
P.sub.1, P.sub.2, P.sub.5 and P.sub.6 stored in the memory 3 are updated.
The flowchart of this processing is shown in FIG. 9. The figure concerns
the case where the cursor lies on the English text. When the cursor
address P.sub.4 is smaller than the display start address P.sub.1 of the
English text (301), P.sub.1 is decreased by M.sub.1 (302). When P.sub.4 is
greater than the display end address P.sub.1 +m.sub.1 .times.n.sub.1 of
the English text (303), P.sub.1 is increased by M.sub.1 (304).
Subsequently, the phrasal element to be highlighted is identified on the
basis of the position of the cursor, and the sentence number and the
phrasal element ID thereof are respectively set in the highlighted
sentence number P.sub.5 and the highlighted phrasal element ID P.sub.6
(305). Further, the address X of the highlighted phrasal element in the
Japanese text is found (306). When X is smaller than the display start
address P.sub.2 of the Japanese text (307), P.sub.2 is decreased by
M.sub.2 (308), and when X is greater than the display end address P.sub.2
+m.sub.2 .times.n.sub.2 of the English text (309), P.sub.2 is increased by
M.sub.2 (310).
In the next place, the function of revising the text will be explained. A
`delete` key 611, an `insert` key 612, a `replace` key 613 and a `move`
key 614 are prepared for the revision of the text. The deleting, inserting
or replacing operation is such that, after the pertinent part has been
appointed with the cursor, a new character string (except the case of
deletion) is inputted through the character keys 601. In inputting the
Japanese character queue, such a method as "kana"-to-Chinese character
conversion is employed. When the Japanese text has been revised, not only
the character data of the text area is updated, but also "1" is set in the
second bit of the word containing the phrasal element ID of the revised
phrasal element. In addition, the `move` key 614 serves to change the
order of phrasal elements. When the phrasal element to be moved and the
destination of the movement are appointed with the cursor, phrasal element
data within the text area, inclusive of the phrasal element ID, are moved.
FIGS. 4(B) and 4(C) illustrate examples of the text revision. FIG. 4(B)
shows stored contents in the case where, in the Japanese text of FIG.
4(A), the phrasal element of "ITSUMO" has been moved between "WATAKUSHIWA"
and "BASUNIYOTTE". FIG. 4(C) shows stored contents in the case where
"NIYOTTE" of "BASUNIYOTTE" in FIG. 4(B) has been replaced with "DE".
(4) Transmitting Revised Japanese text in Memory 3 to Host computer 9:
FIG. 10 shows a flowchart of the processing. In the figure, symbol I
denotes an index which indicates an address in the Japanese text area, and
symbol B(I) indicates the word of the address I of the Japanese text area.
In addition, F is a flag which indicates if a phrasal element being
processed has been revised. After "0" has been set in F (401) and "1" as
an initial value has been set in I (402), the following processing is
executed till the end of the text (403). Whether or not B(I) is the
character code, is investigated (404). When it is the character code, this
character code is sent (406) only in case of the character of the revised
phrasal element (405). When B(I) is the sentence number or the phrasal
element ID, either is determined on the basis of B(I+1) (407). In the case
of the sentence number, two ESC codes are sent in succession (408),
whereupon sentence number data is sent (409). In the case of the phrasal
element ID, it is sent (412). However, whether or not the preceding data
sent is character data is decided (410), and in the case of the character
data, the ESC code indicative of the end of the character data is sent
before the phrasal element ID (411). After the phrasal element ID has been
sent, whether or not the particular phrasal element has been revised is
investigated (413). When it has been revised, "1" is set in F (414), and
the ESC code indicating the start of the character data to be sent is
subsequently sent (415). When the particular phrasal element has not been
revised, "0" is set in F (416). In either case, after one word has been
processed, "1" is added to I (417) so as to advance the flow to the
processing of the next word. FIG. 11 shows an example of transmission
data. This corresponds to the text in FIG. 4(C). In FIG. 11, A denotes the
sentence number, and B the phrasal element subjected to the revision. The
host computer 9 can restore the text on the basis of the fact that when
the two ESC codes have succeeded, the sentence number follows, and that
when one ESC code has appeared, the character data appears until the next
ESC code appears, and by regarding the others as the phrasal element ID's.
According to the present invention, the following effects are achieved:
(1) The corrections of a translated text can be efficiently performing
owing to the functions of simultaneously displaying and interlockingly
scrolling a text in the source language and the translated text in the
target language, the function of dynamically displaying the corresponding
relationship between the texts (in phrasal element unit) by the movement
of a cursor, the function of moving phrasal elements, etc.
(2) To the end of storing the corresponding relationship of both the texts
required for realizing the above functions, merely one bit may be added to
each word of a refresh memory. Moreover, in revising the text, any special
processing for holding the corresponding relationship is not required.
Therefore, the responsiveness is good.
(3) The quantity of transmission data in the case of sending the revised
text to a host computer can be remarkably compressed.
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