Syntax in machine translation

The general problem area of machine translation has been outlined and related to other fields of language-data processing in Garvin's “A Linguist's View of Language-data Processing.” It has been discussed in some detail in the two immediately preceding sections by Hays and Harper. This discussion will deal more specifically with the question of syntax: both with the place of syntax in the over-all design of a machinetranslation program, and with the detailed problems of syntactic resolution. Machine translation is a process for translating text automatically from one language to another. This process is embodied in a program—that is, a set of instructions for a computer. With such a program, any large-scale computing machine can be transformed into a translating machine. A genuine translation is more than just the replacement of individual foreign words by individual English words. It must transmit the essential information contained in the foreign text to an English reader who is unfamiliar with the language. The meaning of each sentence is more than the sum of the meanings of each word—it also depends on the structure of the sentence and the function of each word in that structure. To obtain a satisfactory translation, the program must therefore contain not only a dictionary lookup for finding individual word meanings, but also a translation algorithm for making correct translation choices and for detecting the elements of meanings implicit in the sentence. The core of such a translation algorithm is a syntax routine. The major purpose of a syntax routine in machine translation is to recognize and appropriately record the boundaries and functions of the various components of the sentence. This syntactic information is essential for the efficient solution of the problem of word order for the output and is equally indispensable for the proper recognition of the determiners for multiple-meaning choices. It is furthermore becoming increasingly apparent that it is the design of the syntax routine which governs the over-all layout of a good machine-