ALPHANUMERIC MESSAGE COMPOSING METHOD USING TELEPHONE KEYPAD

An interactive method for composing an alphanumeric message by a caller using a telephone keypad includes storing (215) a lexical database (135) from which unigram probabilities, forward conditional probabilities, and backward conditional probabilities for a plurality of words can be recovered; storing a received sequence of key codes (405) representing a sequence in which keys on a telephone style keypad are keyed; generating a word trellis including candidate words (415) derived from the sequence and the lexical database; determining a most likely phrase (420) from the candidate words, the unigram probabilities, forward conditional probabilities, and backward conditional probabilities; generating a most likely message (425) from the most likely phrase and presenting the most likely message to the caller; and confirming that the most likely message is the alphanumeric message (430).