DISAMBIGUATION OF TELEPHONE STYLE KEY PRESSES TO YIELD CHINESE TEXT USING SEGMENTATION AND SELECTIVE SHIFTING

摘要

To enter Chinese text, a user enters the corresponding phonetic spelling via telephone style keypad (108) In disambiguatlng entered key presses to yield a valid phonetic spelling, a computer (100) divides the key presses into segments (602 604, 606), while still preserving key press order Each segment must correspond to an entry (160) in a dictionary of Chinese (150) characters character phrases, and/or character components such as radicals or other predetermined stroke groupings Upon arrival (501 505b) of a new key press that cannot form a valid entry when appended to the current segment, key presses are incrementally reallocated (512) from the previous segment As for already-resolved segments occurring prior to the previous and current segments (602), these are left intact After each shifting attempt, the computer reinterprets key presses of the last two segments, and accepts the new segmentation if the segments form valid dictionary entries (514, 516)