Translation assistance device and method

A translation assistance method executed by a computer having an input device, an output device and a storage device the method comprising:

• accepting an arbitrary area specification in an input sentence from the input device;
• parsing the input sentence into a plurality of clauses;
• identifying, as a target area, based on the clauses resulting from the parsing, any of the clauses corresponding to an area specified;
• setting, as a target clause, any of the clauses located at a boundary of the target area identified by the identifying, and setting as a candidate for modification of the target clause, any of the clauses adjacent to the target clause in the target area;
• judging whether there exists a relationship of modification between the target clause and the candidate for modification;
• determining, when the judging indicates that there exists the relationship of modification, a translation area based on the target area, the target clause, and the candidate for modification;
• and
• outputting the translation area determined to the output device.

A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium which records a translation assistance program to be executed via a computer to perform process, comprising:

• accepting an arbitrary area specification in an input sentence from the input device;
• parsing the input sentence into a plurality of clauses;
• identifying, as a target area, based on the clauses resulting from the parsing, any of the clauses corresponding to an area specified;
• setting, as a target clause, any of the clauses located at a boundary of the target area identified by the identifying, and setting as a candidate for modification of the target clause, any of the clauses adjacent to the target clause in the target area;
• judging whether there exists a relationship of modification between the target clause and the candidate for modification;
• determining, when the judging indicates that there exists the relationship of modification, a translation area based on the target area, the target clause, and the candidate for modification;
• and
• outputting the translation area determined to the output device.