Re: CHAT: Machine translation (was Re: translation)

--- taliesin the storyteller
<taliesin-conlang@...> wrote:

> * Gary Shannon said on 2006-06-19 17:42:40 +0200
<snip>
> [..] the real problem is the parsers. They parse for
> structure instead
> > of parsing for meaning. Once a parser is built
> that will yeild the
> > IDENTICAL parse tree for the two sentences below,
> then the machine
> > translation problem will be mostly solved:
> >
> > 1. "Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard."
> > 2. "It was to the wall-mounted cabinet that the
> eldery woman named
> > Mother Hubbard did go."
>
> But these two sentences doesn't mean quite the same
> thing, and would be
> rendered differently in target languages as well.
>
>
> t.
There is a world of difference between "literary
translation and "utilitarian translation." I believe
that literary translation would require full-blown AI,
while compentant utilitarian translation could be
accomplished with a good deal less.

I think that the first goal of utilitarian translation
should be good translation of the basic meaning. Only
after that is mastered would nuances of meaning be
tackled. For all practical purposes (e.g. translating
bicycle assembly instructions from Japanese to
English) such nuance is unnecessary and the two
sentences can be thought of as  describing essentially
identical events.

I think the initial focus needs to be on conveying
what event is being described by the sentence, and not
on capturing literary style or nuance. If I am reading
a scientific paper for its content I don't care if the
author was a literary giant, or if he's a middling
hack barely capable of putting together a
grammatically correct sentence, as long as the
essential meaning is correct.

--gary

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