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.
>
>
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