SYSTEM FOR ANALYZING TRANSLATIONS

Apparatus and methods for comparing a text with its translation. The apparatus uses cognates in the text and the translation to make a list of first positions in the text and second positions in the translation. The second position specifies a location in the translation which is in the neighborhood of the translation of the first position in the text. By means of the list, a given location in the text can be related to a location in the translation which is in the neighborhood of the translation of the given location. The list permits parallel displays of the text and the translation and easy production of full-context concordances, glossaries, and histograms. Graphs based on the list can be used to detect parts of the text which are not in the translation and vice-versa. The list is made using a technique which iteratively computes an alignment path in a graph which records the positions of matching 4-grams in the text and the translation. The technique is more robust than techniques which use sentences and paragraphs to determine alignment.