Attempts to improve machine translation by making the machines grammatically aware:
http://www.physorg.com/news6363.htmlBingley
Hey, that's really cool! tsuwm, you'll be interested in the content, I think, and AnnaS, take a look at the headline: Grammar Lost Translation Machine In Researchers Fix Will !
With the best will in the world, IMHO they'll fail. I spent two years studying natural language processing for a post-grad dissertation and came to the (perhaps startling) conclusion that "natural" language processing, i.e. the use of proper, colloquial syntax allied to the appropriate vocabulary underpinned by an understanding of culturally-tuned semantics is absolutely and utterly impossible for any entity which isn't able to reason about these things and draw upon external knowledge to supplement them, as opposed to merely comparing patterns, which is all that the ISI system does when it all boils down.
We're still a long way from computers that can interact meaningfully and consistently from a basis of self-awareness.
When they do get there, I predict it will be a two-ring circus.
Grammar Lost Translation Machine In Researchers Fix Will
heh® (for the outpoint you I thank, Jackie -- clicking I hadn't done yet)
[echo]AAAUUUUGGGGHHHH![/echo]
Poor Alan must be Tur(n)ing in his grave.
Why, when I click the link, do I get the site but the content area is blank? Is there a registration process that I didn't notice? Thanks...
Leslie
Leslie, I just tried it again, and it worked okay for me. Odd that yours is blank; mine IS full of ads, but the content is there, starting with:
Software matches up phrases that consistently show up in parallel fashion — the English "my brother's pants" and Spanish "los pantalones de mi hermano," — and then use these matches to piece together translations of new material.
the content area is blank?
I get a page full of blank, too. I get that a lot. I've always ascribed it to Opera 5 for Mac being more and more a second class netizen.
I don't know what your set-up is Leslie, but I find when I go there I get a blank page with ads down the side and I have to scroll about half-way down the page to get to the content, and even then the first paragraph is often covered by more ads.
Bingley
[tech sidebar] fwiw, I only get that effect when the window is not maximised - something about the framing of that page seems to scramble if I have say a half-screen window. [/tech sidebar]
I don't fully share your doubts, Capfka - once the full power of modern computing gets trained on the tree logic as a corpora, I suspect a good approximation may start to emerge. But you're right of course - that which humans process without much conscious effort sets a fiendish task to analyse and an even harder challenge to replicate...
Mav, thanks for your reply - it was the one that worked! As soon as I enlarged the screen, the text appeared.
And thanks very much for the other replies as well. Falage, I'm a PC gal all the way (no choice, it's my machine at work) so the MAC stuff doesn't have any effect here.
Anyway, I appreciate once again the help given here. We really are a rather nice bunch of folks, eh?
Leslie