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Conference of the Association for Machine Translation in the Americas

AMTA 1998: Machine Translation and the Information Soup pp 318–332Cite as

Twisted Pair Grammar: Support for Rapid Development of Machine Translation for Low Density Languages

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 1529))

Abstract

We describe a streamlined knowledge acquisition method for semi-automatically constructing knowledge bases for a Knowledge Based Machine Translation (KBMT) system. This method forms the basis of a very simple Java-based user interface that enables a language expert to build lexical and syntactic transfer knowledge bases without extensive specialized training as an MT system builder. Following [Wu 1997], we assume that the permutation of binary-branching structures is a sufficient reordering mechanism for MT. Our syntactic knowledge is based on a novel, highly constrained grammar construction environment in which the only re-ordering mechanism is the permutation of binary-branching structures (Twisted Pair Grammar). We describe preliminary results for several fully implemented components of a Hindi/Urdu to English MT prototype being built with this interface.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Defense, NLP Research Branch, Attn: R525 9800 Savage Road Ft, Meade, MD, 20755-6000

    Douglas Jones

  2. R.A. Baruch & Associates, 10500 Little Pautuxent Pkwy Ste. 790, Columbia, MD, 21044

    Rick Havrilla

Authors
  1. Douglas Jones
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  2. Rick Havrilla
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Computing Research Lab, New Mexico State University, Box 30001 / 3CRL, Las Cruces, NM, 88003, USA

    David Farwell

  2. SYSTRAN Inc., 7855 Fay Avenue, Suite 300, P.O. Box 907, La Jolla, CA, 92037, USA

    Laurie Gerber

  3. Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California, 4676 Admiralty Way, Marina del Rey, CA, 90292-6695, USA

    Eduard Hovy

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© 1998 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Cite this paper

Jones, D., Havrilla, R. (1998). Twisted Pair Grammar: Support for Rapid Development of Machine Translation for Low Density Languages. In: Farwell, D., Gerber, L., Hovy, E. (eds) Machine Translation and the Information Soup. AMTA 1998. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 1529. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-49478-2_29

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-49478-2_29

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-65259-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-49478-2

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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