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Method for increasing the accuracy of statistical machine translation (SMT)

  • US 20090192782A1
  • Filed: 01/21/2009
  • Published: 07/30/2009
  • Est. Priority Date: 01/28/2008
  • Status: Abandoned Application
First Claim
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1. A Method that utilizes the inherent statistical nature of SMT in the translation of a source language sentence to a target language sentence, the individual “

  • sentence”

    being the basic unit of SMT translation, to determine if said sentence has been translated correctly to the target language or not, comprising;

    When said sentence contains phrase(s), and/or individual word(s) that have more than one possible meaning, said SMT translation process determines the statistical probability of each possible meaning of each said phrase or word utilizing statistical analytics derived from either or both the SMT language pair database and/or a particular domain database to determine the statistical “

    probability spread”

    of each possible meaning of each said phrase or individual word in said sentence being translated.When said statistical “

    probability spread”

    relating to the possible different meanings of a particular phrase or word, in said sentence, that has more than one possible meaning is “

    statistically conclusive”

    , in that there is a high statistically valid probability in said statistical “

    probability spread”

    , relative to the “

    probability scores”

    of the other possible meanings of said phrase or word, points to one of said possible meanings of said word or phrase points as the “

    statistically conclusive”

    , said “

    statistically conclusive”

    meaning of said word or phrase is then chosen as the “

    correct meaning”

    of said word or phrase to be used in said translation of said sentence.When said statistical “

    probability spread”

    relating to the possible different possible meanings of a particular phrase or word within said sentence is “

    statistically inconclusive”

    , in that there is not a high statistically valid probability in said statistical “

    probability spread”

    , relative to the “

    probability scores”

    of the other possible meanings of said phrase or word, that points to any one of the possible meanings of said word or phrase as the statistically correct meaning, said SMT system does not know and cannot determine which of the multiple possible meanings of said word or phrase is the “

    correct meaning”

    of said phrase or word. For example, in the case that the statistical “

    probability spread”

    of a phrase or word, within said sentence, that has four different possible meanings which are;

    73%, 21%, 5% and 1% respectively, there is a high “

    statistically conclusive”

    probability that the meaning of the word or phrase correlating to the 73% probability of correctness, is indeed the correct meaning of said phrase or word. Alternately, in the case that the above said “

    probability spread”

    is 27%, 26% 25% and 22% respectively, there is no “

    statistically conclusive”

    probability that any of the meanings of said phrase or word correlating to the above “

    probability spread”

    is the “

    statistically correct”

    meaning, and the SMT system is unable to conclusively translate the above said phrase or word.According to the present method, a sentence is determined to have been translated correctly, only in the event that every phrase and/or word within said sentence with more than one meaning, have respective “

    probability spreads”

    for said phrases and/or words within said sentence indicating that all of the chosen meanings for all phrases and/or words within said sentence, that have more than one possible meaning, are “

    statistically conclusive”

    choices, in which case said sentence is determined to have been “

    translated correctly”

    , otherwise said sentence is determined to have been “

    translated incorrectly”

    .

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