14. A method for recognizing an input character string according to claim 13 further characterized in that said candidate set selecting step comprises determining the minimum combined correspondence signal for the reference character sets of the searched groups and storing the candidate set having the minimum combined correspondence signal.
13. A method for recognizing an input character string according to claim 12 further characterized in that said character correspondence signal combining step comprises; retrieving each stored reference character set of the group; selecting the character correspondence signals for the retrieved group reference character set; and summing the selected character correspondence signals to form the reference character set combined correspondence signal.