27. Means according to claim 26 wherein the means for adjusting comprises means modifying the representation of the number of characters in the stem portion of the query word up one unit, down one unit, or not at all, in accordance with the value represented by said acceptable match class indication.
26. Means according to claim 25 wherein the suffixes of different ones of the candidate words and the acceptable suffixes have different numbers of characters therein, and wherein the means for determining the characters forming the stem portion comprises means for forming a representation of the number of characters in the stem portion of the query word, and wherein the means for determining the ending portion of a candidate word comprises means for adjusting representations of the number of characters in the stem portion of the query word as a function of the value represented by the match class indication to thereby form an indication of the position of the characters of the ending portion in the candidate word.