AUTOMATIC CONTEXT SENSITIVE LANGUAGE CORRECTION AND ENHANCEMENT USING AN INTERNET CORPUS

• US 20100286979A1
• Filed: 07/31/2008
• Published: 11/11/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 08/01/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ginger Software, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Ginger Software, Inc.
• Inventors: Zangvil, Avner, Zangvil, Yael Karov
• Granted Patent: US 8,914,278 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/9
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/10 Text processing natural language analysis G06F40/20; semantic analysis G06F40/30; processing or translation of natural language G06F40/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/232 Orthographic correction, e.g. spell checking or vowelisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/253 Grammatical analysis; Style critique
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/263 Language identification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/40 Processing or translation of natural language natural language analysis G06F40/20; semantic analysis G06F40/30
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/26 Speech to text systems G10L15/08 takes precedence

Abstract

A computer-assisted language correction system including spelling correction functionality, misused word correction functionality, grammar correction functionality and vocabulary enhancement functionality utilizing contextual feature-sequence functionality employing an internet corpus.

Claims

1. A computer-assisted language correction system comprising:

an alternatives generator, generating on the basis of an input sentence a text-based representation providing multiple alternatives for each of a plurality of words in the sentence;

a selector for selecting among at least said multiple alternatives for each of said plurality of words in the sentence, based at least partly on an internet corpus; and

a correction generator operative to provide a correction output based on selections made by said selector.

2. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 1 wherein said selector is operative to make said selections based on at least one of the following correction functions:

spelling correction;

misused word correction;

grammar correction; and

vocabulary enhancement.

3. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 1 wherein said selector is operative to make said selections based on at least two of the following correction functions:

spelling correction;

misused word correction;

grammar correction; and

vocabulary enhancement.

4. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 3 and wherein said selector is operative to make said selections based on at least one of the following time ordering of corrections:

spelling correction prior to at least one of misused word correction, grammar correction and vocabulary enhancement; and

misused word correction and grammar correction prior to vocabulary enhancement.

5. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 2 and wherein:

said input sentence is provided by one of the following functionalities;

word processor functionality;

machine translation functionality;

speech-to-text conversion functionality;

optical character recognition functionality; and

instant messaging functionality; and

said selector is operative to make said selections based on at least one of the following correction functions;

misused word correction;

grammar correction; and

vocabulary enhancement.

6. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 2 and wherein said correction generator comprises a corrected language input generator operative to provide a corrected language output based on selections made by said selector without requiring user intervention.

7. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 2 and wherein said grammar correction functionality includes at least one of punctuation, verb inflection, single/plural, article and preposition correction functionalities.

8. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 2 and wherein said grammar correction functionality includes at least one of replacement, insertion and omission correction functionalities.

9. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 1 and wherein said selector includes context based scoring functionality operative to rank said multiple alternatives, based at least partially on contextual feature-sequence (CFS) frequencies of occurrences in an internet corpus.

10. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 9 and wherein said context based scoring functionality is also operative to rank said multiple alternatives based at least partially on normalized CFS frequencies of occurrences in said internet corpus.

11. A computer-assisted language correction system comprising:

at least one of;

spelling correction functionality;

misused word correction functionality;

grammar correction functionality; and

vocabulary enhancement functionality; and

contextual feature-sequence functionality cooperating with at least one of said spelling correction functionality;

said misused word correction functionality, grammar correction functionality and said vocabulary enhancement functionality and employing an internet corpus.

12. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 11 and wherein said grammar correction functionality includes at least one of punctuation, verb inflection, single/plural, article and preposition correction functionalities.

13. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 11 and wherein said grammar correction functionality includes at least one of replacement, insertion and omission correction functionalities.

14. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 11 and comprising:

at least two of;

said spelling correction functionality;

said misused word correction functionality;

said grammar correction functionality; and

said vocabulary enhancement functionality, and

wherein said contextual feature-sequence functionality cooperates with at least two of said spelling correction functionality;

said misused word correction functionality, said grammar correction functionality and said vocabulary enhancement functionality and employing an internet corpus.

15. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 11 and comprising:

at least three of;

said spelling correction functionality;

said misused word correction functionality;

said grammar correction functionality;

said vocabulary enhancement functionality; and

wherein said contextual feature-sequence functionality cooperates with at least three of said spelling correction functionality;

said misused word correction functionality, said grammar correction functionality and said vocabulary enhancement functionality and employing an internet corpus.

16. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 11 and comprising:

said spelling correction functionality;

said misused word correction functionality;

said grammar correction functionality; and

said vocabulary enhancement functionality; and

wherein said contextual feature-sequence functionality cooperates with said spelling correction functionality;

said misused word correction functionality, said grammar correction functionality and said vocabulary enhancement functionality and employing an internet corpus.

17. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 11 and wherein said correction generator comprises a corrected language generator operative to provide a corrected language output based on selections made by said selector without requiring user intervention.

18. A computer-assisted language correction system comprising:

an alternatives generator, generating on the basis of a language input a text-based representation providing multiple alternatives for each of a plurality of words in the sentence;

a selector for selecting among at least said multiple alternatives for each of said plurality of words in the language input, based at least partly on a relationship between selected ones of said multiple alternatives for at least some of said plurality of words in said language input; and

a correction generator operative to provide a correction output based on selections made by said selector.

19. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 18 and wherein said language input comprises at least one of an input sentence and an input text.

20. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 18 and wherein said language input is speech and said generator converts said language input in speech to a text-based representation providing multiple alternatives for a plurality of words in said language input.

21. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 18 and wherein:

said language input is at least one of;

a text input;

an output of optical character recognition functionality;

an output of machine translation functionality; and

an output of word processing functionality; and

said generator converts said language input in text to a text-based representation providing multiple alternatives for a plurality of words in the language input.

22. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 18 and wherein said selector is operative to make said selections based on at least two of the following correction functions:

spelling correction;

misused word correction;

grammar correction; and

vocabulary enhancement.

23. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 22 and wherein said selector is operative to make said selections based on at least one of the following time ordering of corrections:

spelling correction prior to at least one of misused word correction, grammar correction and vocabulary enhancement; and

misused word correction and grammar correction prior to vocabulary enhancement.

24. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 18 and wherein said language input is speech and said selector is operative to make said selections based on at least one of the following correction functions:

misused word correction;

grammar correction; and

vocabulary enhancement.

25. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 18 and wherein said selector is operative to make said selections by carrying out at least two of the following functions:

selection of a first set of words or combinations of words which include less than all of said plurality of words in said language input for an initial selection;

thereafter ordering elements of said first set of words or combinations of words to establish priority of selection; and

thereafter when selecting among said multiple alternatives for an element of said first set of words, choosing other words, but not all, of said plurality of words as a context to influence said selecting.

26. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 18 and wherein said selector is operative to make said selections by carrying out the following function:

when selecting for an element having at least two words, evaluating each of said multiple alternatives for each of said at least two words in combination with each of said multiple alternatives for each other of said at least two words.

27. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 18 and wherein said correction generator comprises a corrected language input generator operative to provide a corrected language output based on selections made by said selector without requiring user intervention.

28. A computer-assisted language correction system comprising:

a misused-word suspector evaluating at least most of the words in an language input on the basis of their fit within a context of the language input; and

a correction generator operative to provide a correction output based at least partially on an evaluation performed by said suspector.

29. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 28 and also comprising:

an alternatives generator, generating on the basis of said language input, a text-based representation providing multiple alternatives for at least one of said at least most words in said language input; and

a selector for selecting among at least said multiple alternatives for each of said at least one of said at least most words in said language input, and wherein

said correction generator is operative to provide said correction output based on selections made by said selector.

30. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 28 and also comprising:

a suspect word output indicator indicating an extent to which at least some of said at least most of said words in said language input is suspect as a misused-word.

31. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 28 and wherein said correction generator comprises an automatic corrected language generator operative to provide a corrected text output based at least partially on an evaluation performed by said suspector, without requiring user intervention.

32. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 28 and wherein said language input is speech and said selector is operative to make said selections based on at least one of the following correction functions:

misused word correction;

grammar correction; and

vocabulary enhancement.

33. A computer-assisted language correction system comprising:

a misused-word suspector evaluating words in an language input;

an alternatives generator, generating multiple alternatives for at least some of the words in the language input evaluated as suspect words by said suspector, at least one of said multiple alternatives for a word in the language input being consistent with a contextual feature of said word in the language input in an internet corpus;

a selector for selecting among at least said multiple alternatives; and

a correction generator operative to provide a correction output based at least partially on a selection made by said selector.

39. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 33 and wherein said selector is operative to make said selections based on at least two of the following correction functions:

spelling correction;

misused word correction;

grammar correction; and

vocabulary enhancement.

40. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 39 and wherein said selector is operative to make said selections based on at least one of the following time ordering of corrections:

spelling correction prior to at least one of misused word correction, grammar correction and vocabulary enhancement; and

misused word correction and grammar correction prior to vocabulary enhancement.

41. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 33 and wherein said language input is speech and said selector is operative to make said selections based on at least one of the following correction functions:

grammar correction; and

misused word correction; and

vocabulary enhancement.

42. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 33 and wherein said correction generator comprises a corrected language input generator operative to provide a corrected language output based on selections made by said selector without requiring user intervention.

43. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 33 and wherein said selector is also operative to make said selections based at least partly on a user input uncertainty metric.

44. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 43 and wherein said user input uncertainty metric is a function based on a measurement of the uncertainty of a person providing said input.

45. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 33 and wherein said selector also employs user input history learning functionality.

34. A computer-assisted language correction system comprising:

a misused-word suspector evaluating words in an language input and identifying suspect words;

an alternatives generator, generating multiple alternatives for said suspect words;

a selector, grading each said suspect word as well as ones of said multiple alternatives therefor generated by said alternatives generator according to multiple selection criteria, and applying a bias in favor of said suspect word vis-à

-vis ones of said multiple alternatives therefor generated by said alternatives generator; and

a correction generator operative to provide a correction output based at least partially on a selection made by said selector.

35. A computer-assisted language correction system comprising:

an alternatives generator, generating on the basis of an input multiple alternatives for at least one word in the input;

a selector, grading each said at least one word as well as ones of said multiple alternatives therefor generated by said alternatives generator according to multiple selection criteria, and applying a bias in favor of said at least one word vis-à

-vis ones of said multiple alternatives therefor generated by said alternatives generator, said bias being a function of an input uncertainty metric indicating uncertainty of a person providing said input; and

a correction generator operative to provide a correction output based on a selection made by said selector.

36. A computer-assisted language correction system comprising:

an incorrect word suspector evaluating at least most of the words in a language input, said suspector being at least partially responsive to an input uncertainty metric indicating uncertainty of a person providing said input, said suspector providing a suspected incorrect word output; and

an alternatives generator, generating a plurality of alternatives for suspected incorrect words identified by said suspected incorrect word output;

a selector for selecting among each suspected incorrect word and the plurality of alternatives generated by said alternatives generator; and

a correction generator operative to provide a correction output based on a selection made by said selector.

37. A computer-assisted language correction system comprising:

at least one of a spelling correction module, a misused-word correction module, a grammar correction module and a vocabulary enhancement module receiving a multi-word input and providing a correction output, each of said at least one of a spelling correction module, a misused-word correction module, a grammar correction module and a vocabulary enhancement module including;

an alternative word candidate generator including;

phonetic similarity functionality operative to propose alternative words based on phonetic similarity to a word in said input and to indicate a metric of phonetic similarity; and

character string similarity functionality operative to propose alternative words based on character string similarity to a word in said input and to indicate a metric of character string similarity for each alternative word; and

a selector operative to select either a word in said output or an alternative word candidate proposed by said alternative word candidate generator by employing said phonetic similarity and character string similarity metrics together with context-based selection functionality.

38. A computer-assisted language correction system comprising:

suspect word identification functionality, receiving a multi-word language input and providing a suspect word output which indicates suspect words;

feature identification functionality operative to identify features including said suspect words;

an alternative selector identifying alternatives to said suspect words;

feature occurrence functionality employing a corpus and providing an occurrence output, ranking various features including said alternatives as to their frequency of use in the corpus; and

a selector employing said occurrence output to provide a correction output,

said feature identification functionality comprising feature filtration functionality including at least one of;

functionality for eliminating features containing suspected errors;

functionality for negatively biasing features which contain words introduced in an earlier correction iteration of said multi-word input and which have a confidence level below a confidence level predetermined threshold; and

functionality for eliminating features which are contained in another feature having an frequency of occurrence above a predetermined frequency threshold.

46. A computer-assisted language correction system comprising:

suspect word identification functionality, receiving a multi-word language input and providing a suspect word output which indicates suspect words;

feature identification functionality operative to identify features including said suspect words;

an alternative selector identifying alternatives to said suspect words;

occurrence functionality employing a corpus and providing an occurrence output, ranking features including said alternatives as to their frequency of use in the corpus; and

a correction output generator, employing said occurrence output to provide a correction output,

said feature identification functionality comprising;

at least one of;

N-gram identification functionality; and

co-occurrence identification functionality; and

at least one of;

skip-gram identification functionality;

switch-gram identification functionality; and

previously used by user feature identification functionality.

47. A computer-assisted language correction system comprising:

a grammatical error suspector evaluating at least most of the words in an language input on the basis of their fit within a context of the language input; and

a correction generator operative to provide a correction output based at least partially on an evaluation performed by said suspector.

48. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 47 and also comprising:

an alternatives generator, generating on the basis of said language input, a text-based representation providing multiple alternatives for at least one of said at least most words in said language input; and

a selector for selecting among at least said multiple alternatives for each of said at least one of said at least most words in said language input, and wherein

said correction generator is operative to provide said correction output based on selections made by said selector.

49. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 47 and also comprising:

a suspect word output indicator indicating an extent to which at least some of said at least most of said words in said language input is suspect as containing grammatical error.

50. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 47 and wherein said correction generator comprises an automatic corrected language generator operative to provide a corrected text output based at least partially on an evaluation performed by said suspector, without requiring user intervention.

51. A computer-assisted language correction system comprising:

a grammatical error suspector evaluating words in a language input;

an alternatives generator, generating multiple alternatives for at least some of the words in the language input evaluated as suspect words by said suspector, at least one of said multiple alternatives for a word in the language input being consistent with a contextual feature of said word in the language input;

a selector for selecting among at least said multiple alternatives; and

a correction generator operative to provide a correction output based at least partially on a selection made by said selector.

53. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 51 and wherein said correction generator comprises a corrected language input generator operative to provide a corrected language output based on selections made by said selector without requiring user intervention.

52. A computer-assisted language correction system comprising:

a grammatical error suspector evaluating words in an language input and identifying suspect words;

an alternatives generator, generating multiple alternatives for said suspect words;

a selector, grading each said suspect word as well as ones of said multiple alternatives therefor generated by said alternatives generator according to multiple selection criteria, and applying a bias in favor of said suspect word vis-à

-vis ones of said multiple alternatives therefor generated by said alternatives generator; and

a correction generator operative to provide a correction output based at least partially on a selection made by said selector.

54. A computer-assisted language correction system comprising context based scoring of various alternative corrections, based at least partially on contextual feature-sequence (CFS) frequencies of occurrences in an internet corpus.

55. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 54 and also comprising at least one of:

spelling correction functionality;

misused word correction functionality;

grammar correction functionality; and

vocabulary enhancement functionality,

cooperating with said context based scoring.

56. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 54 and wherein said context based scoring is also based at least partially on normalized CFS frequencies of occurrences in an internet corpus.

57. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 54 and wherein said context based scoring is also based at least partially on a CFS importance score.

58. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 54 and wherein said CFS importance score is a function of at least one of the following:

operation of a part-of-speech tagging and sentence parsing functionality;

a CFS length;

a frequency of occurrence of each of the words in the CFS and a CFS type.

59. A computer-assisted language correction system comprising vocabulary enhancement functionality including:

vocabulary-challenged words identification functionality;

alternative vocabulary enhancements generation functionality; and

context based scoring functionality, based at least partially on contextual feature-sequence (CFS) frequencies of occurrences in an internet corpus,

said alternative vocabulary enhancements generation functionality including thesaurus pre-processing functionality operative to generate alternative vocabulary enhancements.

60. A computer-assisted language correction system comprising:

an alternatives generator, generating on the basis of an input sentence a text-based representation providing multiple alternatives for each of a plurality of words in the sentence;

a selector for selecting among at least said multiple alternatives for each of said plurality of words in the sentence;

a confidence level assigner operative to assign a confidence level to a selected alternative from said multiple alternatives; and

a correction generator operative to provide a correction output based on selections made by said selector and at least partially on said confidence level.

61. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 60 and wherein said multiple alternatives are evaluated based on contextual feature sequences (CFSs) and said confidence level is based on at least one of the following parameters:

number, type and scoring of selected CFSs;

a measure of statistical significance of frequency of occurrence of said multiple alternatives, in the context of the CFSs;

degree of consensus on the selection of one of said multiple alternatives, based on preference metrics of each of said CFSs and word similarity scores of said multiple alternatives;

a non-contextual similarity score of said one of said multiple alternatives being above a first predetermined minimum threshold; and

an extent of contextual data available, as indicated by the number of said CFSs having CFS scores above a second predetermined minimum threshold and having preference scores over a third predetermined threshold.

62. A computer-assisted language correction system comprising:

a punctuation error suspector evaluating at least some of the words and punctuation in a language input on the basis of their fit within a context of the language input based on frequency of occurrence of feature-grams of said language input in an internet corpus; and

a correction generator operative to provide a correction output based at least partially on an evaluation performed by said suspector.

63. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 62 and wherein said correction generator includes at least one of missing punctuation correction functionality, superfluous punctuation correction functionality and punctuation replacement correction functionality.

64. A computer-assisted language correction system comprising:

a grammatical element error suspector evaluating at least some of the words in a language input on the basis of their fit within a context of the language input based on frequency of occurrence of feature-grams of said language input in an internet corpus; and

a correction generator operative to provide a correction output based at least partially on an evaluation performed by said suspector.

65. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 64 and wherein said correction generator includes at least one of missing grammatical element correction functionality, superfluous grammatical element correction functionality and grammatical element replacement correction functionality.

66. A computer-assisted language correction system according to claim 64 and wherein said grammatical element is one of an article, a preposition and a conjunction.