PURPOSE: To improve the efficiency of sentence processing work by providing each word in a dictionary with an attributive code representing the nature of object sentences, preserving the attributive code as history when selecting the word, and making decision from the preserved history which attributive code is optimum to the entire sentences that are under processing.

CONSTITUTION: In dictionary 1, each word 2 has a structure provided with an attributive code 3 representing the nature of object sentences. Further, although a document 7 during processing is processed for selection of various words, at the retrieval side a frequency of selection for each attrubutive code 3 is preserved in an attrubutive selection history 4, thereby a frequency of selection of an attrubutive code 3 corresponding to each word selection is counted up. Furthermore, in the document 7 when a word is subjected to retrieval, the attributive code selection history 4 is referred to, a selection priority 5 is determined, retrieval is carried out on diactionary 1 based on this sequence, and a sequence added presentation condidate 6 is obtained. With this, the efficiency of document processing work is improved.