[Corpora-List] Microsoft patents verb conjugations

[sciubba at uniroma3.it]

Well, I had a look at the patent site and they 
skillfully admit that there are other tools doing 
something similar (though i can't imagine any of 
these coming up with "com re" as the Latin form 
for "to eat"!!!!!!)>>>>(see below)

and anyway they propose this patent as a learning 
tool ****TECHNICAL FIELD 

[0001] The described technology relates generally 
to conjugating verbs and particularly to selecting a 
verb to conjugate when learning a language. ****

So it seems to me that this is a computer-assisted 
learning tool, since there is also the description of 
some images (that I can't see, unfortunately).

Hopfully it's a false alarm... :[

>>>>BACKGROUND 

[0002] Software tools are currently available to help 
a user who is learning a new language to conjugate 
verbs. Many of these software tools are available via 
the Internet. Although there are many variations of 
these software tools, they typically receive as input 
an infinitive form of a verb and display its verb 
forms. The verb forms may be identified by a verb 
form description that may include mood, tense, 
number, person, and gender. The moods may 
include indicative, subjunctive, and imperative; the 
tense may include past, present, and future and 
other tenses; the number may include singular and 
plural; the person may include first, second, and 
third; and the gender may include masculine, 
feminine, and neuter. The software tools typically 
use the infinitive form of a verb as an index into a 
table that contains the verb forms of that verb. 
Some software tools may even allow a user to input 
a non-infinitive form of a verb and then display the 
verb forms corresponding to that verb. 

[0003] When a user inputs a verb, some software 
tools search multiple languages to determine 
whether the languages have a verb with the same 
spelling. For example, when a user inputs "comer," 
the software tool may report that both Portuguese 
and Spanish have a verb with that spelling. The 
software tool allows the user to select the language 
of interest and then displays the verb forms of the 
input verb in the selected language. 

[0004] Although these software tools may be useful 
in conjugating verbs, they have various limitations. 
For example, if a user misspells the infinitive form 
or non-infinitive form of a verb, then the software 
tools report an error. The reporting of an error can 
be quite frustrating to a user who is trying to learn a 
language and has made a simple spelling error. 
The user is effectively prevented from learning the 
correct spelling of that verb. As another example, a 
user who wants to see the verb forms in a target 
language (e.g., a language that the user is 
studying) for a certain verb, but only knows that 
verb in a base language (e.g., the user's native 
language), cannot obtain the verb forms directly. 
Rather, the user first needs to locate a base 
language to target language dictionary (e.g., a 
bilingual dictionary) and use the verb in the base 
language to locate the verb in the target language. 
Once the user has located a verb in the target 
language, then the user can input that verb to a 
software tool to conjugate the verb. As another 
example, some software tools for verb conjugating 
will locate matching infinitive forms of a verb in 
multiple languages. For example, if a user 
inputs "como," which is a non-infinitive form, the 
software tool may display the infinitive forms 
of "com re" [SICSICSIC!!!!!] for Latin and "comer" 
for both Portuguese and Spanish. The software tools 
may, however, search for only one matching verb for 
a language and display only the infinitive form of 
that verb even when multiple verbs match. As 
another example, some software tools may not 
display all tenses and moods of a verb. It would be 
desirable to have a technique for overcoming these 
and other limitations of existing software tools for 
conjugating verbs. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<





> If anybody has been deriving the infinitive of a 
verb
> from a finite form, you may be violating a recent 
patent
> application by Microsoft.  (However, I suspect that 
there
> may be prior art that had been published earlier.)
> 
> Following is the title, abstract, and URL.
> 
> John Sowa
> 
_________________________________________________
________
> 
> Source: http://tinyurl.com/e5g7y
> 
> United States Patent Application 20060195313
> 
> Voetberg; Eric J.; et al.  August 31, 2006
> 
> Method and system for selecting and conjugating 
a verb
> 
> Abstract
> 
> A verb conjugating system allows a user to input a 
form of a verb and 
> display the verb forms. The verb conjugating 
system allows the user to 
> input the infinitive form or non-infinitive forms of 
a verb. When a user 
> inputs a non-infinitive form of a verb, the verb 
conjugating system 
> identifies a corresponding base form of the verb. 
The verb conjugating 
> system then uses the base form to retrieve and 
display the verb forms 
> for the verb. The verb conjugating system may 
highlight the 
> non-infinitive form of the verb within the displayed 
verb forms to 
> assist the user in locating the verb form of 
interest.
> 
>