In the structured document retrieval device, a condition in which an element designated by a retrieval expression fails to occur is obtained from structure information and added as an interruption condition to a retrieval automaton and when the interruption condition is satisfied, a state transition of the retrieval automaton is deleted and when there remains none of all the effective state transitions, determination is made that the designated element will no more appear even by further analysis to end the analysis of a structured document. Without retrieving the structured document to the end, the element designated by the retrieval expression can be extracted without overs and shorts.