Abstract
This paper is concerned with the conditions under which token reference to individuals comes about on the one hand and type reference to the whole kind of an entity is rendered on the other. We consider how the process of reference comes about with nouns inherently denoting mass concepts and with nouns denoting countable concepts. We exemplify the interpretation of np readings with a rule component which has been implemented in the machine translation system cat2. Out of these np readings those articles are to be generated which are in accordance with the language-specific conventions.
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I would like to thank Randall Sharp for many discussions particularly about the English examples and for correcting my English. I would also like to thank Nadia Mesli for helping me with the French examples. With respect to my own explanation of the translation from German to French I am indebted to Michael Grabski, whose extensive classification of examples inspired me. Last but not least, thanks are due to the editors Erich Steiner and Valerio Allegranza, who pointed out a number of inconsistencies to me.
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Zelinsky-Wibbelt, C. Token reference vs. type reference: Implications for machine translation. Machine Translation 6, 183–192 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00397281
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00397281