Handheld electronic device with disambiguation of compound word text input employing separating input

Abstract

A handheld electronic device includes a reduced QWERTY keyboard and is enabled with disambiguation software that is operable to disambiguate compound word text input. The device provides output in the form of a default output and a number of variants. The output is based largely upon the frequency, i.e., the likelihood that a user intended a particular output, but various features of the device provide additional variants that are not based solely on frequency and rather are provided by various logic structures resident on the device.

1 . A method of disambiguating an input into a handheld electronic device having an input apparatus, an output apparatus, and a memory having stored therein a plurality of language objects and a plurality of frequency objects, each of at least some of the language objects being associated with an associated frequency object, the input apparatus including a plurality of input members, each of at least some of the input members having a plurality of linguistic elements assigned thereto, the method comprising:
 detecting an ambiguous input comprising a first portion followed by a separating input followed by a second portion;   regardless of whether one or more of said plurality of language objects is identified that corresponds with and has a length equal to a length of the first portion, identifying from the memory a particular one of the language objects stored therein that corresponds with the second portion; and   outputting a solution representative of the first portion and at least a portion of the identified particular one of the language objects.   
   
   
       2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising outputting as the solution an output representative of the first portion followed by an initial portion of the identified particular one of the language objects, the initial portion having a length equal to the length of the second portion. 
   
   
       3 . A handheld electronic device comprising:
 an input apparatus comprising a plurality of input members, each of at least some of the input members having a plurality of linguistic elements assigned thereto;   an output apparatus;   a processor apparatus comprising a memory having stored therein a plurality of language objects and a plurality of frequency objects, each of at least some of the language objects being associated with an associated frequency object;   the processor apparatus being structured to detect an ambiguous input comprising a first portion followed by a separating input followed by a second portion;   the processor apparatus being structured to, regardless of whether one or more of said plurality of language objects is identified that corresponds with and has a length equal to a length of the first portion, identify from the memory a particular one of the language objects stored therein that corresponds with the second portion; and   the processor apparatus being structured to output a solution representative of the first portion and at least a portion of the identified particular one of the language objects.   
   
   
       4 . The handheld electronic device of  claim 3 , wherein the processor apparatus is structured to output as the solution an output representative of the first portion followed by an initial portion of the identified particular one of the language objects, the initial portion having a length equal to the length of the second portion.