1. A method for segmenting compound words in an unrestricted natural-language input, the method comprising: receiving a natural-language input consisting of a plurality of characters; constructing a set of probabilistic breakpoints in the natural-language input based on probabilistic breakpoint analysis; identifying a plurality of linkable components by traversal of substrings of the natural-language input delimited by the set of probabilistic breakpoints; and returning a segmented string consisting of a plurality of linkable components spanning the natural-language input, wherein the segmented string is interpretable as a compound word.