The use of a random access device for dictionary lookup

Robert S. Betz, Walter Hoffman


Abstract
The purpose of this paper will be to present a scheme to locate for single textual items and idioms in textual order their corresponding dictionary entries stored in an IBM 1301 random access mechanism. Textual items are considered to be 24 characters in length (left justified with following blanks). A dictionary entry consists of a 24 character Russian form, grammar information for the form and a set of translations for that form. Dictionary entries are packed into sequential tracks of the 1301. This paper will cover the method used for dictionary storage. The lookup for a textual item I first consists of a search for the first track that the dictionary entry E (if one exists) for I could be stored in. Once a track has been determined its contents are searched in core by a bisection convergence technique to find E. If E cannot be found, a “no entry” indication is made. If E is found a further search is made of the dictionary to find the longest sequence of text, starting with the first item I, that has a dictionary entry. The last such entry found is picked up. Included in the presentation will be examples of the dictionary lookup output for actual text.
Anthology ID:
1963.earlymt-1.2
Volume:
Proceedings of the Annual meeting of the Association for Machine Translation and Computational Linguistics
Month:
25-26 August
Year:
1963
Address:
Denver, Colorado
Venue:
EarlyMT
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Publisher:
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URL:
https://aclanthology.org/1963.earlymt-1.2
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Cite (ACL):
Robert S. Betz and Walter Hoffman. 1963. The use of a random access device for dictionary lookup. In Proceedings of the Annual meeting of the Association for Machine Translation and Computational Linguistics, Denver, Colorado.
Cite (Informal):
The use of a random access device for dictionary lookup (Betz & Hoffman, EarlyMT 1963)
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