A method for capitalizing text in a document includes processing a reference
corpus
to construct a plurality of dictionaries of capitalized terms, where the plurality
of dictionaries include a singleton dictionary and a phrase dictionary. Each record
in the singleton dictionary contains a word in lowercase, a range of phrase lengths
m:n for capitalized phrases that the word begins, where m is a minimum phrase length
and n is a maximum phrase length, and where each record in the phrase dictionary
includes a multi-word phrase in lowercase. The method adds proper capitalization
to an input monocase document by capitalizing words found in mandatory capitalization
positions; and by looking up each word in the singleton dictionary and, if the
word is found in the singleton dictionary, testing the corresponding phrase length
range. If the phrase length range indicates that the word does not start a multi-word
phrase, the method capitalizes the word, while if the phrase length range indicates
that the word does start a multi-word phrase, the method tests the word and an
indicated plurality of next words as a candidate phrase to determine if the candidate
phrase is found in the phrase dictionary and, if it is, capitalizes the words of
the multi-word phrase. If the candidate phrase is not found in the phrase dictionary,
the method changes the number of words in the candidate phrase (e.g., decrements
by one) to form a revised candidate phrase, and determines whether the revised
candidate phrase is found in the phrase dictionary.
