Báo cáo khoa học: Mechanical Translation and the Problem of Multiple Meaning

THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN undertook research, late in 1955, in the analysis of language structure for mechanical translation. Emphasis was placed on the use of the contextual structure of the sentence as a means of reducing ambiguity and on the formulation of a set of operative rules which an electronic computer could use for automatically translating Russian texts into English.
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Báo cáo khoa học: "Mechanical Translation and the Problem of Multiple Meaning" [Mechanical Translation, vol.3, no.2, November 1956; pp. 46-51, 61]Mechanical Translationand the Problem of Multiple Meaning †A. Koutsoudas and R. Korfhage, Willow Run Laboratories, University of MichiganTHE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN undertook were combined with others to form idioms; inresearch, late in 1955, in the analysis of lan- which case more than one meaning had to beguage structure for mechanical translation. listed. Finally, the words were listed in con-Emphasis was placed on the use of the contex- ventional grammatical categories; i.e., verb,tual structure of the sentence as a means of re- noun, adjective, etc.ducing ambiguity and on the formulation of a In the long run, we expect that the concept ofset of operative rules which an electronic com- conventional categories will be completely aban-puter could use for automatically translating doned. What we hope to have, instead, are wordRussian texts into English. This is a prelimi- groups the interaction of which will provide thenary report on the latter phase of the problem, grammatical and syntactical information needed.stating the results and suggesting a practical The need for such grouping has been made ap- parent. 3method for handling idioms and the problem ofmultiple meanings. The rules were developed empirically by ana- It was decided that the first work would be lysis of the essential processes undertaken bydone on Russian texts in physics, both because a human mind in translating a foreign text. Itof the interest in this field and because of the was found that most of the rules involved eithergeneral availability of texts. Some work has word order or the grammatical functions whichalready been done in this field.1 If this work in Russian are indicated only by case endingsproves successful, it will form a basis for work and which in English might be classified by in-in other scientific, technical, and military fields. serting a preposition. In most cases the rules A text was selected from a Russian journal concerning word order were sufficient to eli-on experimental and theoretical physics.2 It minate the necessity of referring to endings.was chosen to present most of the expected To test the adequacy of the rules, several volun-difficulties; i.e., stylistic, orthographical, gram- teers who had no knowledge of Russian werematical, etc. On the basis of this text a vocabu- asked to translate the original text, using onlyl ary was set up and fifteen rules were estab- our rules and vocabulary.* Except for random,lished. (Subsequent work has altered the rules minor stylistic faults, it turned out that the re-slightly to remove such obvious faults as the sulting translations were clear and accurate.occurrence of the before proper names.) It Being convinced that the rules are as completeshould be realized, of course, that neither the as is practicable for the text, we are currentlyvocabulary nor the rules were in generally ap- enlarging the vocabulary in preparation forplicable form. The vocabulary was simplified future tests on different texts.by applying a one form, one meaning rule Perhaps the most significant result thus farwhenever possible. Thus, inflectional endings is the success in handling multiple meanings,were stripped from most word stems althoughin some cases a word was listed with two or † The work upon which this paper is basedthree specific endings. Most words were given was performed under the Department of thetheir scientific meaning only. Some words, Army, contract No. DA-36-039-sc-52654.however, occurred in more than one sense, or 3. See V.H. Yngve, Sentence for Sentence Translation, MT. Vol.2, No.2, Nov., 1955.1. See K.E. Harper, A Preliminary Study of Russian. Machine Translation of Lan- * The Russian text with the vocabulary and guages, The Technology Press of the Mass. rules based on this text will be found on Institute of Technology and John Wiley & pp.48 to 49. A standard translation and a Sons, In ...