1. A computer method for parsing a compound word composed of a plurality of word components, comprising the steps of: storing a dictionary of stored word components and associating with each of said components a flag indicating whether said word component can be an independent word, a prefix of a word, a middle element of a word, a suffix, or a code specifying the type of morphological transformation it can undergo; inputting an input word stream which includes a compound word which is to be parsed; selecting all words from the dictionary that match an initial substring of the input word and retaining only the dictionary words which have a component flag indicating that said dictionary word can be a prefix element; processing all the remaining portions of the input word, selecting all words from the dictionary that match an initial substring of said remaining portion of the input word and retaining only the dictionary words which have a component flag indicating that the word can be a middle element of a word; processing all the remaining portions of the input word, selecting all words from the dictionary that exactly match said remaining portion of the input word and retaining only the dictionary words which have a component flag indicating that the word can be a word suffix element; applying morphological rules during the search for middle or suffix elements if no suitable dictionary candidates can be found.