Communication support apparatus and computer program product for supporting communication by performing translation between languages

• US 20060293876A1
• Filed: 03/08/2006
• Published: 12/28/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation), Toshiba Digital Solutions Corporation (Toshiba Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Inventors: Kamatani, Satoshi, Chino, Tetsuro
• Granted Patent: US 7,904,291 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/2
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/30 Semantic analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/40 Processing or translation of natural language natural language analysis G06F40/20; semantic analysis G06F40/30

Abstract

A communication supporting apparatus includes an input accepting unit that accepts a source language sentence to be translated input by a user; a paraphrase knowledge storing unit that stores paraphrase knowledge in which a source language interpretation which is an interpretation of the semantic content of the source language sentence is associated with a paraphrase interpretation having the same semantic content as the source language interpretation and a different expression form; a source language analyzing unit that analyzes the semantic content of the input source language sentence and outputs the source language interpretation; a paraphrasing unit that obtains the paraphrase interpretation associated with the output source language interpretation from the paraphrase knowledge storing unit, and paraphrases the input source language sentence in a source language paraphrase sentence based on the obtained paraphrase interpretation; and a translation unit that translates the output source language interpretation into a first target language sentence and translates the obtained paraphrase interpretation into a second target language sentence.

Claims

1. A communication supporting apparatus comprising:

an input accepting unit that accepts a source language sentence to be translated input by a user;

a paraphrase knowledge storing unit that stores paraphrase knowledge in which a source language interpretation which is an interpretation of the semantic content of the source language sentence is associated with a paraphrase interpretation having the same semantic content as the source language interpretation and a different expression form;

a source language analyzing unit that analyzes the semantic content of the input source language sentence and outputs the source language interpretation;

a paraphrasing unit that obtains the paraphrase interpretation associated with the output source language interpretation from the paraphrase knowledge storing unit, and paraphrases the input source language sentence in a source language paraphrase sentence based on the obtained paraphrase interpretation; and

a translation unit that translates the output source language interpretation into a first target language sentence and translates the obtained paraphrase interpretation into a second target language sentence.

2. The communication supporting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the input accepting unit accepts one re-input sentence selected by the user from a re-input sentence which is a paraphrased and input source language sentence of the source language sentence input by the user, and

the communication supporting apparatus further comprises:

an input record storing unit that stores the source language interpretation relative to the source language sentence input by a user, and a re-input interpretation which is the source language interpretation relative to the re-input sentence, by associating the source language interpretation with the re-input interpretation; and

a paraphrase knowledge extracting unit that extracts the paraphrase knowledge from the input record storing unit, by associating a select interpretation which is the re-input interpretation relative to the re-input sentence accepting selection by the user with the source language interpretation relative to the source language sentence or the re-input interpretation other than the select interpretation, thereby registering to the paraphrase knowledge storing unit.

3. The communication supporting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the paraphrase knowledge storing unit stores a priority representing an order of priority in applying the paraphrase knowledge by associating the priority with the paraphrase knowledge, and

the communication supporting apparatus further comprises a paraphrase knowledge updating unit that changes the priority based on an adopting state of the paraphrase knowledge.

4. The communication supporting apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the paraphrase knowledge updating unit makes the priority of the paraphrase knowledge generating the source language paraphrase sentence different from the re-input sentence selected by the user lower than the priority before selection, and makes the priority of the paraphrase knowledge generating the source language paraphrase sentence identical to the re-input sentence selected by the user higher than the priority before the selection.

5. The communication supporting apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the paraphrasing unit obtains, from the paraphrase knowledge storing unit, a paraphrase interpretation associated with paraphrase knowledge with the highest priority when there is a plurality of paraphrase interpretations associated with the output source language interpretation, and paraphrases the input source language sentence in a source language paraphrase sentence based on the obtained paraphrase interpretation.

6. The communication supporting apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the paraphrasing unit obtains, from the paraphrase knowledge storing unit, paraphrase interpretations associated with a predetermined number of paraphrase knowledge in descending order of priority when there is a plurality of paraphrase interpretations associated with the output source language interpretation, and paraphrases the input source language sentence in a source language paraphrase sentence based on the obtained paraphrase interpretations.

7. The communication supporting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the paraphrase knowledge storing unit stores paraphrase knowledge in which a morpheme sequence which is a result of a morphological analysis of the source language sentence to be translated is associated with a paraphrase morpheme sequence having semantic content identical to the semantic content represented by the morpheme sequence and a different expression form,

the source language analyzing unit outputs the morpheme sequence, which is a result of the morphological analysis of the input source language sentence as the source language interpretation,

the paraphrasing unit obtains the paraphrase morpheme sequence associated with the morpheme sequence from the paraphrase knowledge storing unit, and paraphrases the input source language sentence in a source language paraphrase sentence based on the obtained paraphrase morpheme sequence, and

the translation unit translates the output morpheme sequence into the first target language sentence and translates the obtained paraphrase morpheme sequence into the second target language sentence.

8. The communication supporting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the paraphrase knowledge storing unit stores the paraphrase knowledge in which a syntactic structure which is a result of syntactic analysis of the source language sentence to be translated is associated with a paraphrase syntactic structure having semantic content identical to the semantic content represented by the syntactic structure a different expression form,

the source language analyzing unit outputs the syntactic structure which is a result of the syntactic analysis of the input source language sentence, as the source language interpretation,

the paraphrasing unit obtains the paraphrase syntactic structure associated with the syntactic structure from the paraphrase knowledge storing unit, and paraphrases the input source language sentence in a source language paraphrase sentence based on the obtained paraphrase syntactic structure, and

the translation unit translates the output syntactic structure line into the first target language sentence and translates the obtained paraphrase syntactic structure into the second target language sentence.

9. A communication supporting method comprising:

accepting a source language sentence to be translated, input by a user;

analyzing the semantic content of the input source language sentence;

outputting a source language interpretation;

obtaining a paraphrase interpretation associated with the output source language interpretation from a paraphrase knowledge storing unit which stores the source language interpretation and the paraphrase interpretation having the same semantic content as the source language interpretation and a different expression form in association with each other,

paraphrasing the input source language sentence in a source language paraphrase sentence based on the obtained paraphrase interpretation;

translating the output source language interpretation into a first target language sentence and the obtained paraphrase interpretation into a second target language sentence.

10. A computer program product having a computer readable medium including programmed instructions for performing a communication support processing, wherein the instructions, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform:

accepting a source language sentence to be translated, input by a user;

analyzing the semantic content of the input source language sentence;

outputting a source language interpretation;

obtaining a paraphrase interpretation associated with the output source language interpretation from a paraphrase knowledge storing unit which stores the source language interpretation and the paraphrase interpretation having the same semantic content as the source language interpretation and a different expression form in association with each other,

paraphrasing the input source language sentence in a source language paraphrase sentence based on the obtained paraphrase interpretation;

translating the output source language interpretation into a first target language sentence and the obtained paraphrase interpretation into a second target language sentence.