Cross-language Text Retrieval with Three Languages Cross-language Text Retrieval with Three Languages

In cross-language text retrieval, query text objects in one language are matched against a collection of text objects in another. Previous work showed that a two-language cross-language text-retrieval system can be created completely automatically by a method called CL-LSI trained on an aligned corpus of text objects. In this paper, we look at the challenge of creating a three-language cross-language text-retrieval system. We nd that CL-LSI extends easily to the three-language case when each training text object is available in all three languages (3-way aligned corpora). However, when each training text object is supplied in only two of the three languages (two-of-three pairwise aligned corpora), the natural extension of CL-LSI behaves very badly. We illustrate these observations on a large English-French-Spanish collection and introduce analysis tools that may be useful for future explorations.