Method and apparatus for machine translation

A machine translation apparatus in which the structures of source sentences in a first language which contain polysemous words having a plurality of meanings are analyzed to translate the source sentences into target sentences in a second language;

• said apparatus comprising:
• a) a characteristic table expressing sufficient characteristics of the structures of a plurality of source sentences each using a given polysemous word so that its meaning is unambiguous in that sentence to enable distinguishing the plurality of meanings of said polysemous word, each meaning from the other of said plurality of meanings, said sufficient characteristics being information which is at least one of either the semantic information or grammatical information distinguishing each meaning of the plural meanings of said given polysemous word from the other of said plurality of meanings;
• b) a determination means for determining whether at least one of either said semantic information or grammatical information in another source sentence to be translated matches characteristics in said characteristics table;
• c) a selection means for selecting one meaning of said given polysemous word when sufficient characteristics of said another source sentence to be analyzed match a meaning to distinguish that one meaning from all the other plurality of meanings of said polysemous word;
• and
• d) means for translating said given source sentence into a target sentence using the meaning selected in paragraph c).