JPH05165889A - Document retrieval device - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [Purpose] To provide an easy-to-use document retrieval device by translating a retrieved document into a desired language and outputting it so that the content of the retrieved document can be understood. [Structure] A search word is input from a search word input unit 101 and held in a search word holding unit 102. Search processing unit 104
Then, the document including the search word held in the search word holding unit 102 is searched from the plurality of documents held in the document holding unit 103. Then, this search result is stored in the search result holding unit 10
Hold at 5. The language determination unit 107 determines the language type of the search word held in the search word holding unit 102 and the language type of the search result (document) held in the search result holding unit 105, and the search word language holding unit respectively The determination result is held in 106 and the search result language holding unit 108. The language comparison unit 109 compares the types of languages held in the search word language holding unit 106 and the search result language holding unit 108, and if different languages, the translation processing unit 110 in the search result holding unit 1
The search result (document) held in 05 is translated.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a document retrieval apparatus for retrieving a document by a computer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Due to the spread of document databases and the improvement of computer processing capability, document retrieval devices for retrieving documents from a large amount of document databases have come into wide use.

This document retrieval apparatus includes a keyword type and a full text retrieval type. The former is a method in which a keyword is given to a document in advance and the user searches the document by designating the keyword as a search word. The latter is a method in which a keyword is not given to the document, the user freely inputs a search word, and the document including the search word is searched.

In either case, it is usually assumed that all search words and documents specified by the user are written in the same language.

[0005]

However, in reality, the documents stored in the document database are not limited to one type of language. For example, there are Japanese documents, French documents, German documents, and English documents. Therefore, it may be required to search for a document in a language other than the language used by the user, in which case the user may not be able to understand the content of the searched document. was there.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned conventional example, and the contents of the retrieved document can be understood and utilized by translating the retrieved document into a desired language and outputting the translated document. It is to provide an easy document retrieval device.

[0007]

In order to achieve the above object, a document search device according to the present invention has the following configuration.
That is, a document search device for inputting a search word and searching for a document, the language specifying means for specifying the output language of the search result, the judging means for judging the type of language, and the language specifying means. Translation means for translating a document into a different language.

[0008]

With the above configuration, when the type of language of the retrieved document is determined by the determining unit and determined to be different from the output language designated by the language designating unit,
The document is translated by the translation means. In this way, even if a document in a language other than the language used by the user is retrieved, the retrieved document is translated and output in the language used by the user. The user can understand the contents of.

[0009]

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

<Embodiment 1> In Embodiment 1, a case will be described where a keyword is not given to a document in advance and the user can freely specify a search word in a full-text search method.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the apparatus according to the first embodiment. In the figure, 101 is a search word input unit for inputting a search word. Reference numeral 102 denotes a search word holding unit that holds the search word input from the search word input unit 101. Reference numeral 103 denotes a document holding unit that stores a plurality of documents. Reference numeral 104 denotes a search processing unit, which is a search term holding unit 1
The document holding unit 103 stores the document including the search word held in 02.
Search from multiple documents stored in. Reference numeral 105 denotes a search result holding unit that holds the search result obtained by the search processing unit 104.

Reference numeral 106 denotes a search word language holding unit, which holds the language type of the search word held in the search word holding unit 102. A language determination unit 107 determines the type of search word or the language of the document. 108 is a search result language holding unit,
The type of language of the search result held in the search result holding unit 105 is held. Reference numeral 109 denotes a language comparison unit, which is a language held in the search word language holding unit 106 and the search result language holding unit 1
Compare the language held in 08. A translation processing unit 110 translates the search result held in the search result holding unit 105. Reference numeral 111 is a translation result holding unit, which holds the result translated by the translation processing unit 110.

Here, the translation processing unit 110 includes one or a plurality of translation units that translate between various languages. The translation method may be any method such as a transfer method and a pivot method.

FIG. 2 is a flow chart showing the processing procedure of the document search operation in the document search apparatus shown in FIG.
The operation of the first embodiment will be described with reference to this figure.

First, in step S1, the search word input unit 10
Enter the search word in 1. The input search word is held in the search word holding unit 102. Next, move to step S2,
The language determination unit 107 determines the language type of the search word held in the search word holding unit 102. Then, the language type of the search word which is the result of this determination is the search word language holding unit 1.
It is held at 06. The method of determining the language type will be described later.

In step S3, the search processing unit 104 performs a search process for searching the document holding unit 103 for a document containing the search word held in the search word holding unit 102. The search processing here is basically based on the AC method or the like for simultaneously searching for a plurality of character strings. Of course, other pattern matching algorithms may be used. The method of searching when the language of the search word and the language of the document are different will be described later. The document obtained as a result of the search processing by the search processing unit 104 is the search result holding unit 10 as the search result.
Held at 5.

Next, in step S4, the search result holding unit 1
It is checked whether or not the search result described above exists in 05. If not remaining, the process ends. If there is a search result, the process proceeds to step S5 and one search result is retrieved from the search result holding unit 105. Then, in step S6, the language determination unit 107 determines the language type of the search result extracted in step S4, and stores the language type in the search result language storage unit 108.

In step S7, the language comparison unit 109 determines whether the language type of the search word stored in the search language storage unit 106 is the same as the language type of the search result stored in the search result language storage unit 108. Find out. When the types of these languages are the same, this search result is held in the translation result holding unit 111 as it is. If the language type of the search word and the language type of the search result are different, the process proceeds to step S8. Then, in step S8, the translation processing unit 110 translates the search result into the same language as that held in the search word language holding unit 106, and the translation result is held in the translation result holding unit 111. After that, the process returns to step S4 again, and the processing up to this point is repeated.

Next, a method of searching a document between different languages will be described.

FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining the language determination unit 107 in detail. 107b is a bilingual dictionary, which is a dictionary holding translated words for each word. For example, the bilingual dictionary 1 is a bilingual dictionary from Japanese to English, and the bilingual dictionary 2 is a bilingual dictionary from Japanese to German.
It is prepared for each language pair. Reference numeral 107a is a translation word expansion unit that obtains a translation word for the search word held in the search word holding unit 102. The translation type expansion unit 107a also determines the language type.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart showing the processing procedure of the operation in the apparatus shown in FIG. The search operation in different languages will be described with reference to this figure.

First, in step S11, the search word input unit 1
Enter the search word with 01. The input search word is held in the search word holding unit 102. Next, the process proceeds to step S12, and the search word holding unit 102 is used in the translation word expanding unit 107a.
Search for the translation of the search term held in. This search is performed for all the dictionaries (the bilingual dictionary 1 to the bilingual dictionary n) in the bilingual dictionary 107b.

Next, in step S13, it is checked whether or not there is a translation of the search term. If there is a translated word of the search word, the process proceeds to step S14, and all the obtained translated words are added to the search word held in the search word holding unit 102. At this time, the above-mentioned translation word is added in the form of an OR condition of "input search word or translation word (including document)". When there is no translated word of the search word, step S14 is skipped and the process moves to step S15, and the search word held in the search word holding unit 102 is "only the input search word".

Next, in step S15, the search processing unit 1
In 04, a search process for searching the document holding unit 103 for a document including the search word held in the search holding unit 102 is performed. The search process here is performed by using, for example, the AC method for simultaneously searching for a plurality of character strings. The document obtained as a result of the search processing is held in the search result holding unit 105.

As described above, documents are searched in different languages. Next, a method of determining the language type will be described.

As an example of the means for determining the language of each document, it is possible to determine the type of language by extracting a word or the like from the document and searching the bilingual dictionary 107b having the word as a headword. Further, it is also possible to give the used language information to each document in advance.

The type of language of the input search word can be determined in the same manner as the method of determining the language of the document described above. That is, a word is extracted from the input search word and the bilingual dictionary 107b having this word as a headword
The type of language is determined by searching for. further,
For the search words translated by the bilingual dictionary, the bilingual dictionary used respectively may be stored in association with the search words.

<Embodiment 2> In the above-mentioned Embodiment 1, the case of the full-text search method has been described, but it is also possible to use the keyword method in which a keyword is given to a document in advance. In the second embodiment, the case of this keyword method will be described.

Assuming that a keyword is attached in one kind of language (for example, Japanese), when searching a document, if the search word (keyword) input by the user is not Japanese, This can be done by translating into Japanese and then searching.

If the language of the retrieved document is different from the language of the retrieval word input by the user, the first embodiment described above is used.
Similar to the above, it is sufficient to translate the search word into the same language.

In each of the above-described embodiments, the language of the search word input by the user is determined and the search result is translated into the same language as that. However, the user sets the language to be output as the search result in advance. By doing so, when the search result is different from the language, the search result may be translated into the language and output.

The present invention may be applied to a system composed of a plurality of devices or an apparatus composed of one device. Further, it goes without saying that the present invention can be applied to a case where it is achieved by supplying a system or apparatus with a program for executing the processing defined in the present invention.

As described above, according to each of the above-described embodiments, even if the language of the retrieved document is different from the language used by the user, the user can output the document in a understandable form. There is an advantage that an easy-to-use document retrieval device can be obtained.

[0034]

As described above, according to the present invention, since the retrieved document is translated into a desired language and outputted, the user can understand the content of the retrieved document. An easy-to-use document search device can be provided.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an apparatus according to an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a flow chart showing a processing procedure of an example.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a detailed configuration of a language determination unit.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of document search in different languages.

[Explanation of symbols]

 101 search word input unit 102 search word holding unit 103 document holding unit 104 search processing unit 105 search result holding unit 106 search word language holding unit 107 language determination unit 108 search result language holding unit 109 language comparison unit 110 translation processing unit 111 translation result Holding part

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A document retrieval apparatus for retrieving a document by inputting a retrieval word, comprising a language designating means for designating an output language of a search result, a determining means for determining a language type, and the language designating means. A translation unit that translates the document into a language specified by the language determining unit determines the language type of the retrieved document by the determination unit, and determines that the language is different from the output language specified by the language designation unit. In the document retrieval apparatus, the document is translated by the translation means. 2. The document search device according to claim 1, wherein the language designation unit uses an input search word as an output language.