Báo cáo khoa học: COMPUTING MACHINES FOR LANGUAGE TRANSLATION

RESEARCH on the problems of machine translation has been going on for several years in this country and abroad. 1 To date it has been concerned primarily with the complicated linguistic problems involved in mechanical translation, since the engineers can probably build the necessary equipment.
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Báo cáo khoa học: " COMPUTING MACHINES FOR LANGUAGE TRANSLATION " [ Mechanical Translation, vol.1, no.3, December 1954; pp. 41-46] COMPUTING MACHINES FOR LANGUAGE TRANSLATION T. M. Stout* Schlumberger Instrument Company Old Quarry Road, Ridgefield, Conn.RESEARCH on the problems of machine trans- fining the results to fit the requirements of thelation has been going on for several years in output language; and (5) recording of the resultsthis country and abroad. 1 To date it has been i n written or other form for future use. Theconcerned primarily with the complicated lin- general procedure may be illustrated by an ex-guistic problems involved in mechanical trans- ample.lation, since the engineers can probably build Suppose the translator is faced with the Ger-the necessary equipment. This article is in- man sentence:tended to suggest some of the linguistic pro- Er fand die Aufgabe zu schwer,blems to the engineer and to explain some oft he engineering ideas for the amateur or pro- which may be translated, He found the task toofessional linguist. The reader is cautioned that difficult. A German-English dictionary givesthe procedures and equipment described are not the following meanings for the individual words:n ecessarily the best or most recent, and that Er - heconsiderable development must be done before fand (from finden) - found;thought,consideredan actual mechanical translator is built and put die - the (article); that, this, he, she, it (dem.into operation. pronoun); who, which, that (rel. pronoun) Aufgabe - t ask, duty; lesson, exercise; askingGeneral Approach: The Language Problem (of riddle); posting (of letter); registration (of P resent proposals for a mechanical transla- luggage); giving up, shutting down (oftor involve, in rough terms, constructing a ma- business)chine which carries out automatically the pro- zu - to, at, in, on (preposition); too (adverb)cess that the human translator is imagined to schwer - heavy; oppressive; clumsy; difficult;use in converting a sentence from one language grave (illness); indigestible (food); strong(the input language) into a new language (the (cigar)output language). This process is assumed toc onsist of (1) transferring the material from Er can be translated only by he. Althoughthe printed page to the brain (reading); (2) finden generally means to find in the sense ofsearching a dictionary to establish the mean- to discover, it also has the figurative mean-ing or meanings of each word in the original ing, to think or to consider. English findtext; (3) selecting the correct meaning from the also shares these meanings and no great harmp ossible alternatives; (4) rearranging and re- will be done if finden is always translated as find. The presence of a noun following die,* This work was done at the Department of i ndicated by the capital letter or by a diction-E lectrical Engineering of the University of ary entry opposite Aufgabe, makes its transla-Washington in Seattle, Washington, and was tion the. The translation of Aufgabe may beoriginally published in THE TREND in En- t aken as task in all cases, since this mean-gineering at the University of Washington, ing is general enough to include all of the other,Vol. 6, No. 3, p. 11 ff, July 1954. The authors specialized meanings; the nature of the taski nterest in mechanical translation and many of should be clear from the context. Zu is trans-t he ideas contained in this article are the lated as too because of the following adjec-result of conversations with Dr. Erwin Reifler tive, which presents the toughest problem ino f the Far Eastern Department of the Univer-- the sentence. The choice i ...