Analysis on Applicability of Common Chinese Word Segmentation Software in Literature Study of Traditional Chinese Medicine Text

This study was aimed to evaluate the applicability of common Chinese word segmentation software used in the literature study of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) text, in order to put forward ideas on developing specialized TCM text word segmentation software. By means of installing and operating Chinese word segmentation software, the word segmentation experiment was conducted on TCM text samples. Aspects, such as Chinese word segmentation accuracy, speed, maneuverability, reliability, extendibility, portability and other characteristics, were compared among different Chinese word segmentation software. The results showed that there were differences on the accuracy, speed, maneuverability, reliability, extendibility, portability among different Chinese word segmentation software. It was difficult to achieve best performance on different aspects by single software. Through the comparison of different Chinese word segmentation software, the Pan-Gu Segment software showed the best performance on accuracy, with good maneuverability, and high word segmentation efficiency, which was the most suitable for word segmentation in TCM text. It was concluded that developing specialized TCM word segmentation software may be the best solution to meet the requirement of word segmentation in TCM literature study. Basic studies should be strengthened from aspects, such as the construction of standard TCM corpus, the completion of TCM dictionary base, the introduction, optimization and innovation of word segmentation algorithm, as well as the development of word segmentation software for TCM text.