Machine translation apparatus for translating document with tag

A machine translation apparatus, for translating a document including at least one tag, has a definition file, a supplementary translation information adding unit, and a machine translation engine. The definition file converts the tag into supplementary translation information for a machine translation operation. The supplementary translation information adding unit adds the supplementary translation information to the document in accordance with the definition file. The machine translation engine carries out the machine translation operation by accepting the document having the supplementary translation information. Therefore, a precise translation can be carried out without using human knowledge or the common sense of an operator.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
1. Field of the Invention 
The present invention relates to a machine translation apparatus, and more 
particularly, to a machine translation apparatus for translating a 
document with at least one tag. 
2. Description of the Related Art 
Recently, as a computer technology advances, machine translation 
apparatuses for automatically translating a document in a first language 
into a second language have been studied and developed. However, using the 
prior art machine translation apparatuses, it is difficult to analyze the 
construction of a document to be translated, and thus the prior art 
machine translation apparatuses can not be used in practice. Therefore, a 
machine translation apparatus able to carry out a precise translation is 
required. 
Note that, the document (for example, a Japanese document) to be translated 
by the machine translation apparatus is determined to be an original 
document as it is, and thus, implicit or supplementary information 
concerning the document and a verbose description thereof necessary for 
the machine translation is omitted. Namely, the original document to be 
translated by the machine translation apparatus does not have sufficient 
description of information for carrying out a machine translation 
operation thereof. Therefore, when using a machine translation apparatus, 
an operator must add the above necessary description and information or 
analyze the meaning of the document in context. 
In the prior art, a machine translation apparatus able to increase the 
accuracy and an efficiency of the translation process is, for example. 
provided by Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (kokai) Nos. 60-124782, 
63-276174, and 4-42362. 
As described above, a translation based on human knowledge or the common 
sense can not be produced by current machine translation apparatuses. 
Current machine translation apparatuses translate a sentence only by using 
the included information thereof. Therefore, a machine translation 
apparatus carries out a translation operation in accordance with an 
original document (sentence) having vague portions, so that the machine 
translation apparatus can not correctly translate the document. 
Further, in the proposed machine translation apparatuses, the translation 
efficiency is not sufficient. Namely, for example, in the machine 
translation apparatus disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication 
(Kokai) No. 60-124782, a standard document form, which can be recognized 
(understood) by the machine translation apparatus, is constituted based on 
the document form of the original document. Further, in a machine 
translation system disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication 
(Kokai) No. 63-276174, the supplementary translation information is not 
always used, and further, this supplementary translation information 
should be input to the machine translation apparatus by dialogue with the 
operation. Further, in a method of processing Japanese documents disclosed 
in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 4-42362, when a 
subject or predicate is omitted, the omitted subject or predicate is 
provided by using a candidate buffer. 
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
An object of the present invention is to provide a machine translation 
apparatus able to carry out a translation, with high accuracy, without 
requiring human knowledge or the common sense of the operator using the 
machine translation apparatus. 
According to the present invention, there is provided a machine translation 
apparatus for translating a document including at least one tag, wherein 
the machine translation apparatus comprises a definition file for 
converting the tag into supplementary translation information for a 
machine translation operation; a supplementary translation information 
adding unit for adding the supplementary translation information for the 
tag, into the document in accordance with the definition file; and a 
machine translation engine for carrying out the machine translation 
operation after accepting the document having the supplementary 
translation information. 
The document to be translated may be a standard general markup language 
document including at least one tag, and the standard general markup 
language document may be translated by converting the tag thereof into 
supplementary translation information. The machine translation apparatus 
may translate the standard general markup language document written in a 
first language and outputs a translated standard general markup language 
document written in a second language. 
The machine translation apparatus may further comprise an alarm function 
unit for detecting a portion of the document to be translated where 
supplementary translation information is required, and for carrying out an 
alarm process by adding a specific tag to the detected portion of the 
document. 
Further, according to the present invention, there is also provided a 
machine translation apparatus for translating a document including at 
least one tag, wherein the machine translation apparatus comprises an 
original document reading unit for reading an original document to be 
translated; a pre-processing unit for carrying out a pre-process for a 
machine translation operation by converting the tag of the original 
document to supplementary translation information which can be recognized 
by the machine translation apparatus, or by deleting the tag from the 
original document; a machine translation performing unit for translating 
the original document, having the supplementary translation information, 
by referring to an exclusive dictionary file and an exclusive grammar 
file; and a post-processing unit for carrying out a post-process of the 
machine translation operation by adding another tag corresponding to the 
tag of the original document to a translated document in accordance with a 
requirement. 
The document to be translated may be a standard general markup language 
document including at least one tag, and the standard general markup 
language document may be translated by converting the tag thereof into 
supplementary translation information. The machine translation apparatus 
may translate the standard general markup language document written in a 
first language and outputs a translated standard general markup language 
document written in a second language. 
The machine translation apparatus may further comprise an alarm function 
unit for detecting any portion of the document to be translated where 
supplementary translation information is required, and for carrying out an 
alarm process by adding a specific tag to the detected portion of the 
document; and the document having the specific tag added by the alarm 
function unit is read by the original document reading unit.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
Below, the embodiments of a machine translation apparatus according to the 
present invention will be explained with reference to the accompanying 
drawings. 
FIG. 1 schematically shows a principle configuration of a machine 
translation apparatus according to the present invention. In FIG. 1, 
reference numeral 1 denotes definition file, 2 denotes a supplementary 
translation information adding unit, and 3 denotes a machine translation 
engine. 
The machine translation apparatus is used to translate a document including 
at least one tag. The definition file 1 converts the tag into 
supplementary information for a machine translation, and the supplementary 
translation information adding unit 2 adds the supplementary information 
of the tag to the document in accordance with the definition file 1. The 
machine translation engine 3 carries out the machine translation operation 
after accepting the document having supplementary translation information. 
Note that, the document including the tag to be translated by the machine 
translation apparatus of the present invention is, for example, a document 
described by a Standard General Markup Language (SGML) document. 
The SGML was defined by ISO 8879 as an exchange-form of a document by the 
International Standardization Organization (ISO) in 1986, and further, 
this ISO 8879 was included in JIS X4151-1992 in Japan in 1992. Namely, 
SGML is used for personal computers (PCs), wordprocessors (WPs), and the 
like, so as to easy modification or processing of the document translated 
(or decoded) into electrical codes. Note that, in SGML, the document 
includes at least one tag which indicates the configuration of the 
document, and the document configuration is described as a standard form. 
When using SGML, a user (operator) can understand the contents and 
configuration of the document by an external appearance (positional 
characteristics) of the document. Further, in SGML, a user (creator) can 
draw up a document by dividing the contents of the document and the form 
thereof, and thus, when a document is made by a plurality of persons, the 
document can be made to conform to a specific standard document form. 
FIG. 2 shows an embodiment of a machine translation apparatus according to 
the present invention. In FIG. 2, 100 denotes a SGML document to be 
translated by the machine translation apparatus, 200 denotes a SGML 
document having supplementary translation information which will be 
described later. Further, reference numeral 1 denotes a definition file, 2 
denotes a translation processing unit (supplementary translation 
information adding unit), 3 denotes a machine translation engine, and 4 
denotes an alarm function unit. 
The definition file 1 is used to convert a tag on the SGML document (200) 
into supplementary information for a machine translation operation, and 
the translation processing unit 2 is used to add the supplementary 
information from the tag to the document in accordance with the definition 
file 1. Further, the machine translation engine 3 is used to carry out the 
machine translation operation by accepting the document containing the 
supplementary translation information processed by the translation 
processing unit 2. 
The SGML document 100 has a plurality of tags indicating format 
information, comment, supplementary words, and the like. In the SGML 
document 100 shown in FIG. 2, for example, reference "&lt;P&gt;" denotes a tag 
for indicating paragraphs, "&lt;TITLE&gt;" denotes a tag for indicating the 
title, and "ITEM" denotes a tag for indicating an item. This SGML document 
100 is input into the alarm function unit 4, and an alarm process, which 
will be explained with reference to FIGS. 3 and 4, is carried out in the 
alarm function unit 4, so that supplementary translation information is 
added to the SGML document. 
Namely, the SGML document 100 is exchanged to a SGML document 200 which has 
supplementary translation information added by the alarm function unit 4. 
Further, each sentence of the SGML document 200 is read, in order, into 
the translation processing unit 2, and a machine translation process for 
each sentence is carried out in the alarm function unit 4 by using the 
definition file 1 and the machine translation engine 3, which will be 
explained later with reference to FIG. 3, and first and second example 
documents (sentences). Note that, in the SGML document shown in FIG. 2, 
"&lt;A&gt;", "&lt;B&gt;", and "&lt;B TYPE=T&gt;" denote tags for indicating supplementary 
translation information added by the alarm function unit 4. 
As shown in FIG. 2, the machine translation engine 3 carries out a machine 
translation for translating a first document written in a first language 
(for example, a document written in Japanese) to a second document written 
in a second language (for example, a document written in English) by using 
dictionary data 31, grammar data 32, and exclusive grammar data 33 as 
supplementary translation information. 
Below, a translation process and an alarm process are explained with 
reference to first to third example sentences. 
First, an example of an overall process of the machine translation 
apparatus according to the present invention will be explained with 
reference to a general document (statement) and an SGML document of a 
first example sentence "(computer)(development)(history)". 
[GENERAL DOCUMENT] 
First, in this general document, it is not clear whether only the word 
"(development)" depends on the word "(computer)", or whether both words 
"(development)" and "(history)" depend on the word "(computer)". 
Namely, when translating the above Japanese document into an English 
document, it is not clear whether the above Japanese document should be 
translated as "Development of a computer and history" or "Development and 
history of a computer". 
[SGML DOCUMENT] 
&lt;MODIFY&gt;&lt;/MODIFY&gt; 
On the other hand, in the above SGML document, the tags "&lt;MODIFY&gt;" and 
"&lt;/MODIFY&gt;" are converted into supplementary translation information in 
accordance with the definition file 1. Concretely, the words 
"(development)" and "(history)", which are positioned between the tags 
"&lt;MODIFY&gt;" and "&lt;/MODIFY&gt;", are determined as both words "(development)" 
and "(history)" depend on the word "(computer)", since the words between 
the tags "&lt;MODIFY&gt;" and "&lt;/MODIFY&gt;" are determined to be dependent words. 
Therefore, the above SGML document is exactly translated as "Development 
and history of a computer". 
Note that, the translated document (English document) can be described as 
an SGML document including tags. Namely, the translated document 
"Development and history of a computer" can be described as 
"&lt;MODIFY&gt;Development and history&lt;/MODIFY&gt; of a computer". These tags 
"&lt;MODIFY&gt;" and "&lt;/MODIFY&gt;" can be eliminated when printing the translated 
document. 
FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an example of overall processes of a machine 
translation apparatus according to the present invention. 
As shown in FIG. 3, when starting translation process, in Step 1, a 
supplementary translation information conversion definition file 
(definition file), which convert tags into supplementary information 
(supplementary translation information) for the machine translation, is 
developed to an internal form. The following table 1 denotes examples of 
the supplementary translation information conversion definition file 
(definition file) for converting the tag (tags) into supplementary 
translation information. 
TABLE 1 
______________________________________ 
AFTER PROCESS 
TAG MEANING FOR TAG 
______________________________________ 
&lt;MODIFY&gt; TRANS-ALLEL REMAIN AFTER 
TRANSLATION 
&lt;INDEX&gt; TRANS-KEYWORD REMAIN AFTER 
TRANSLATION 
______________________________________ 
Next the flow proceeds to Step 2 where an original document is read, and 
further, in Step 3, a pre-process for tags (first process for processing 
the tags) is carried out. In Step 2, the original document to be read by 
the translation processing unit 2 is, for example, an SGML document. 
Concretely, this SGML document is, for example, the above described SGML 
document (statement) "&lt;MODIFY&gt;&lt;/MODIFY&gt;". 
As shown in FIG. 3, Step 3 includes steps 31 and 32. In Step 31, the tags 
for the SGML document are converted into supplementary translation 
information which can be recognized by the machine translation system 
(machine translation engine), and further, the tags may be eliminated. 
Further, in Step 32, a document after carrying out the pre-process for the 
tags is made by the machine translation apparatus. 
Further, the flow proceeds to Step 4, where a first document written in a 
first language (for example, a document written in Japanese) is translated 
to a second document written in a second language (for example, a document 
written in English) by the machine translation engine 3. 
As shown in FIG. 3, Step 4 includes Steps 41 and 42. In Step 41, for 
example, a Japanese document is translated into an English document by the 
machine translation engine 3 by using dictionary data 31, grammar data 32, 
and exclusive grammar data 33 for the supplementary translation 
information. Namely, the exclusive grammar data 33 for the supplementary 
translation information is additionally provided to a general machine 
translation apparatus which has dictionary data and grammar data. Further, 
in Step 42, the translated result (the translated English document) is 
output. 
Further, the flow proceeds to Step 5 including Steps 51 and 52, wherein, an 
after process for the tag is carried out. Namely, in Step 51, the tags 
which are necessary in the translated document are added to the translated 
document, and in Step 52, the translated SGML document including the tags 
is output. 
Next, a machine translation process of the machine translation apparatus 
according to the present invention will be explained by comparing a 
general document with an SGML document of a second example "(print)(print 
station)(use)". 
[GENERAL DOCUMENT] 
First, in this general document, it is possible to translate "(print)" and 
"(use). Namely, when translating the above Japanese document into an 
English document, the Japanese document may be translated as "The print 
uses the print station." 
[SGML DOCUMENT] 
&lt;RELATE TYPE=PURPOSE&gt; 
On the other hand, in the above SGML document, a tag "&lt;RELATE 
TYPE=PURPOSE&gt;" is converted into supplementary translation information in 
accordance with the definition file 1. Concretely, the words "(print)", 
which is positioned just before the tag "&lt;RELATE TYPE=PURPOSE&gt;", is 
determined as an object of the word "(use), and the above SGML document is 
translated indicating that "(print station)" " (use)" for the purpose of 
"(print)". Namely, the SGML document is translated as "The print station 
is used to print." 
Note that, similar to the above described first example, the translated 
document (English document) can be described as an SGML document including 
tags. Namely, the translated document "The print station is used to 
print." can be described as "&lt;RELATE TYPE=PURPOSE&gt;The print station is 
used to print." This tag "&lt;RELATE TYPE=PURPOSE&gt;" can be eliminated when 
printing the translated document. 
Further, an alarm process of the machine translation apparatus according to 
the present invention will be explained by comparing a general document 
with an SGML document of "A B C (ABC system)(document processing)(power) 
(display)(system) (characteristics)(as follows).cndot.(document 
management) (make easy).cndot. (document printing)(speedy) (carry out) (a 
large quantity of)(high speed) (search)" Note that, the alarm process is 
carried out to require an input for supplementary translation information 
at a position where a word (words) are eliminated by avoiding a verbose 
expression, and the like. 
[GENERAL DOCUMENT] 
A B C 
[RESULT OF ALARM PROCESS] 
A B C 1&lt;RELATE TYPE=SUBJ&gt; 2&lt;CONCERN&gt;&lt;/CONCERN&gt;3&lt;RELATE TYPE=SUBJ&gt;.OMEGA. 
.cndot.4&lt;SUBJ&gt;&lt;/SUBJ&gt; 
.cndot.&lt;SUBJ&gt;&lt;/SUBJ&gt; 
.cndot.&lt;SUBJ&gt;&lt;/SUBJ&gt; 
Note that, 1 "&lt;RELATE TYPE=SUBJ&gt;" in the document "A B C &lt;RELATE 
TYPE=SUBJ&gt;" indicates a demand for detailed information for the Japanese 
postpositional particle "". Further, 2 "&lt;CONCERN&gt;&lt;/CONCERN&gt;" in the 
document "&lt;CONCERN&gt;&lt;/CONCERN&gt;&lt;RELATE TYPE=SUBJ&gt;" indicates a demand for a 
relationship of "(characteristics)", and 3 "&lt;RELATE TYPE=SUBJ&gt;" in the 
document "&lt;CONCERN&gt;&lt;/CONCERN&gt;&lt;RELATE TYPE=SUBJ&gt;.OMEGA." indicates a demand 
for detailed information for a Japanese postpositional particle "". In 
addition, 4 "&lt;SUBJ&gt;&lt;/SUBJ&gt;" in the document "&lt;SUBJ&gt;&lt;/SUBJ&gt; ", and the 
like, indicates a demand for the subject of the document, since the 
subject is omitted therefrom. 
[DOCUMENT INCLUDING SUPPLEMENTARY TRANSLATION INFORMATION ADDED IN 
ACCORDANCE WITH THE OUTPUT OF THE ALARM PROCESS: INPUT DOCUMENT FOR 
MACHINE TRANSLATION] 
A B C 1&lt;RELATE TYPE=SUBJ&gt;2&lt;CONCERN&gt; A B C &lt;/CONCERN&gt; 3 
.cndot.4&lt;SUBJ&gt; A B C &lt;/SUBJ&gt; 
.cndot.&lt;SUBJ&gt; A B C &lt;/SUBJ&gt; 
.cndot.&lt;SUBJ&gt; A B C &lt;/SUBJ&gt; 
Note that, there is not necessary for 1 "&lt;RELATE TYPE=SUBJ&gt;" in the 
document "A B C &lt;RELATE TYPE=SUBJ&gt;" to modify the document, since a 
postpositional particle of Japanese "" indicates a subject of the 
document. Further, 2 "&lt;CONCERN&gt; A B C &lt;/CONCERN&gt;" in the document 
"&lt;CONCERN&gt; A B C &lt;/CONCERN&gt;&lt;RELATE TYPE=SUBJ&gt;" clarifies the relation 
concerning to "A B C ", and the postpositional particle of Japanese "" is 
modified to 3 "". In addition, 4 "&lt;SUBJ&gt; A B C &lt;/SUBJ&gt;" in the document 
"&lt;SUBJ&gt; A B C &lt;/SUBJ&gt; ", and the like, clarifies that the subject is "A B 
C ". 
FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing an example of an alarm process of a machine 
translation apparatus according to the present invention. 
When starting an alarm process, in Step S101, an original document is input 
into the alarm function unit (4), and in Step S102, the input document is 
analyzed. Next, in Step S103, wherein the original document is checked to 
determine whether or not the original document includes necessary 
components (for example, subject, object, and the like), and the flow 
proceeds to Step S104. 
In Step S104, a specific portion, where an assumed translation operation of 
the machine translation is required or where vagueness exists, is checked. 
Further, in Step S105, a tag, which indicates the requirement for 
inputting supplementary translation information, is inserted at the 
checked portion (vague portion), and the flow proceeds to Step S106. 
In Step S106, an alarm document (a document including a tag for requiring 
input of supplementary translation information) is output. Note that, the 
process carried out in Steps S103 and S105 corresponds to the process of 
inserting "&lt;SUBJ&gt;&lt;/SUBJ&gt;" into the document "&lt;SUBJ&gt;&lt;/SUBJ&gt; " of the above 
explained third example document. Further, the process carried out in 
Steps S104 and S105 corresponds to the process of inserting "&lt;RELATE 
TYPE=SUBJ&gt;" into the document "A B C &lt;RELATE TYPE=SUBJ&gt;" of the above 
explained third example document. 
As described above, according to the embodiments of the present invention, 
a writer (operator) can freely describe a document, for example, by 
omitting verbose words or terms which are generally omitted in a normal 
document. Further, the operator can directly describe the supplementary 
translation information for carrying out the machine translation (machine 
translation engine) into the document. Namely, a language substantially 
corresponding to a programming language can be defined for the machine 
translation engine, and an accurate document (data) can be input to the 
machine translation engine, so that the original document (for example, a 
Japanese document) can be translated into another language document) for 
example, English document) with high accuracy. Further, the machine 
translation can be quickly carried out. In addition, the original document 
and the translated document can be uniformly managed. 
Note that, in the above descriptions, a first language document to be 
translated is determined to be a Japanese documenty, and a second language 
document, which is a translated document, is determined to be an English 
document, but these first and second language document are not limited to 
Japanese and English document. Namely, a machine translation apparatus 
according to the present invention can not only be applied to a machine 
translation from Japanese to English, but can also be applied to machine 
translation between other languages. 
Consequently, according to a machine translation apparatus of the present 
invention, by adding a tag to a document as supplementary translation 
information and then by carrying out a translation operation, a precise 
translation can be carried out without requiring human knowledge or the 
common sense of an operator. 
Many different embodiments of the present invention may be constructed 
without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention, and 
it should be understood that the present invention is not limited to the 
specific embodiments described in this specification, except as defined in 
the appended claims.