SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR ALIGNING A REFERENCE SEQUENCE OF SYMBOLS WITH HYPOTHESIS REQUIRING REDUCED PROCESSING AND MEMORY

A method of determining an alignment sequence between a reference sequence of symbols and a hypothesis sequence of symbols includes loading a reference sequence of symbols to a computing system and creating a reference finite state automaton for the reference sequence of symbols. The method further includes loading a hypothesis sequence of symbols to the computing system and creating a hypothesis finite state automaton for the hypothesis sequence of symbols. The method further includes traversing the reference finite state automaton, adding new reference arcs and new reference transforming properties arcs and traversing the hypothesis finite state automaton, adding new hypothesis arcs and new hypothesis transforming properties arcs. The method further includes composing the hypothesis finite state automaton with the reference finite state automaton creating alternative paths to form a composed finite state automaton and tracking a number of the alternative paths created. The method further includes pruning the alternative paths based on likely top paths, backtracking over most likely paths of the composed finite state automaton, and rescoring edit-distances of the composed finite state automaton.