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Methods for part-of-speech determination and usage

  • US 5,146,405 A
  • Filed: 02/05/1988
  • Issued: 09/08/1992
  • Est. Priority Date: 02/05/1988
  • Status: Expired due to Term
First Claim
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1. An automated method for assigning parts of speech to words in a message, of the type comprising the steps of:

  • storing data in a computer system which is relevant to words likely to be in the message and usages of said words as various parts of speech, andemploying processing means in the computer system to select for each word in the message a likely part of speech responsive to a likely part of speech for at least an adjacent word in the message and responsive to said stored data,said method being characterized in that;

    the storing step comprises storing statistical data relating to;

    (1) the actual likelihood of occurrence of each one of said likely words as a particular part of speech (hereinafter, the lexical likelihood), and (2) the actual likelihoods of occurrence of each of said words as a particular part of speech when occurring adjacent to words that are particular parts of speech (hereinafter, the contextual likelihood), andthe selecting step comprises maximizing, for each word in the message, its overall likelihood of being a particular part of speech by a finite-state optimization technique commonly known as the "Viterbi" optimization technique, said technique being responsive to both the stored lexical likelihoods for each said word and the stores contextual likelihoods for at least said adjacent word.

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