MACHINE TRANSLATION APPARATUS, TRANSLATION METHOD, AND TRANSLATION SYSTEM

• US 20150205788A1
• Filed: 01/15/2015
• Published: 07/23/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 01/22/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Original Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Inventors: Nagase, Tomoki, Kadotani, Masataka
• Granted Patent: US 9,547,645 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/211 Syntactic parsing, e.g. based on context-free grammar [CFG] or unification grammars
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/30 Semantic analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/55 Rule-based translation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/58 Use of machine translation, e.g. for multi-lingual retrieval, for server-side translation for client devices or for real-time translation

Abstract

A machine translation apparatus configured to translate an input sentence and output a translated sentence in a target language, the machine translation apparatus includes a rule acquirer configured to acquire a difference between an input example sentence and a replaced example sentence which is obtained by replacing the input example sentence, and acquire a replacement rule based on the difference and each of meaning representations which indicate each relationship of words in the input example sentence and the replaced example sentence; and a translator configured to apply the replacement rule acquired by the rule acquirer to the input sentence and output the translated sentence based on the meaning representations and a meaning representation indicating of relationship of words in the input sentence.

Claims

1. A machine translation apparatus configured to translate an input sentence and output a translated sentence in a target language, the machine translation apparatus comprising:

a rule acquirer configured to acquire a difference between an input example sentence and a replaced example sentence which is obtained by replacing the input example sentence, and acquire a replacement rule based on the difference and each of meaning representations which indicate each relationship of words in the input example sentence and the replaced example sentence; and

a translator configured to apply the replacement rule acquired by the rule acquirer to the input sentence and output the translated sentence based on the meaning representations and a meaning representation indicating of relationship of words in the input sentence.

2. The machine translation apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein when messages are translated, transmitted and received, the replacement rule is updated using a feedback representing a meaning of the translated sentence and provided by another user who transmits and receives messages.

3. The machine translation apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the meaning representation is defined as data that represents, as nodes, words included in a sentence and includes the meanings of the words and modification relations between the words.

4. The machine translation apparatus according to claim 3,

wherein the replacement rule is performed based on determination of whether or not a node that has a specific modification relation with the difference.

5. The machine translation apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the replacement rule is data set as a combination of a first word to be replaced, a second word to be used to determine that the replacing is to be executed, and a modification relation between the first word and the second word.

6. The machine translation apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein translation from Japanese to English is executed.

7. The machine translation apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein translation from English to Japanese is executed.

8. A translation system comprising:

a machine translation apparatus configured to translate an input sentence and output a translated sentence in a target language, the machine translation apparatus including,

a rule acquirer configured to acquire a difference between an input example sentence and a replaced example sentence which is obtained by replacing the input example sentence, and acquire a replacement rule based on the difference and each of meaning representations which indicate each relationship of words in the input example sentence and the replaced example sentence; and

a translator configured to apply the replacement rule acquired by the rule acquirer to the input sentence and output the translated sentence based on the meaning representations and a meaning representation indicating of relationship of words in input sentence; and

a server configured to enable at least two users to exchange messages through a network, the messages being translated by the machine translation apparatus and transmitted and received, the server enabling the machine translation apparatus to acquire the replacement rule based on a feedback provided by any of the users.

9. A translation method for causing a computer to translate an input sentence and output a translated sentence in a target language, the translation method comprising:

causing the computer to acquire a difference between an input example sentence and a replaced example sentence which is obtained by replacing the input example sentence;

causing the computer to acquire a replacement rule based on the difference and each of meaning representations which indicate each relationship of words in the input example sentence and the replaced example sentence; and

causing the computer to apply the replacement rule to the input sentence and output the translated sentence based on the meaning representations and a meaning representation indicating of relationship of words in the input sentence.