QUERY TRANSFORMATION SYSTEM AND METHOD ENABLING RETRIEVAL OF MULTILINGUAL WEB DOCUMENTS

A query transformation system and method capable of not only solving an ambiguousness of words involved in the transformation of queries from one language to another language, but also executing its processing independently of the processing of an information retrieval system used, so that it can be applied to a variety of information retrieval systems, thereby enabling the information retrieval system used to function as a multilingual information retrieval system. The system includes a translation generator for generating all possible translations of an input query consisting of a source language by reference to a translation dictionary, a semantic category verifier for receiving the generated translations from the translation generator, and eliminating translations having a low semantic similarity from the received translations, based on a semantic category tree, and a collocation information verifier for receiving the translations, which includes no translation having a low semantic similarity, from the semantic category verifier, and eliminating translations having no collocation from the received translations, based on word collocation information.