Word Expert Translation from German into Chinese in - Knowledge ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

C. Word Class Expert Parser for German Based on the ideas of Word Class Functions [7], Helbig and Hartrumpf [6] developed the first semantically oriented word class expert parser for the German language – WOCADI. In contrast to Small’s distributed-interaction approach, WCFA describes the grammatical functions of whole classes of words [6, pp.313]. The parser transforms German sentences into the MultiNet formalism [5]. It has been tested with all of the texts in the German Wikipedia. The MultiNet formalism and the WOCADI parser have been successfully applied in the LogAnswer question answering (QA) system which scored second among non-English QA systems in the CLEF competition [4]. D. Word Experts for Translation As pointed out by Small, the word expert perspective suggests a new way to look at translation [10, p.15]. The generation step, in particular, requires word experts to arrange themselves into a meaningful sequence by communicating with each other. 1 For example, let the three word experts represent drive, Joanie and car. The drive expert would send out the message: in front of me there shall be someone, behind me there shall be a vehicle, who fits? The Joanie expert would reply: I can stay in front of you; the car expert would reply: I can stay behind you. A sequence of Joanie drives car is therefore formed. Translation from the word expert perspective consists of two processes: one process is word expert parsing from the source language into a meaning representation, and the second process is word expert generation from the meaning representation into the target language. We focus on the translation from German into Chinese. The first process is carried out by the WOCADI parser. The second process transforms the MultiNet semantics representation [5] into Chinese. III. THE CHINESE LANGUAGE AND CHINESE WORD EXPERTS The grammar for Chinese is totally different from the grammars of German or English: Most parts of speech can serve as both the subject and the predicate in a Chinese sentence. Therefore, an attempt to map grammar rules between German and Chinese only makes things complicated. We will show that the word expert perspective is a very suitable way to explain the Chinese language. A. Subject and Predicate as Topic and Comment Chao [3] studied the Chinese language and concluded that the relation between the subject and the predicate in a Chinese sentence is a topic-comment relation. This relation holds in all Chinese dialects [12], e.g., Mandarin (used in Peking area), Wu (used around Shanghai area), Cantonese (used in and around Canton area), and WenYan (used in ancient China). For example, in ��(��/John, ��/dead), ��/John is the topic, ��/dead is the comment, which presents a 1 For simplicity, we adopt Small’s individual word experts view here though an abstraction of word class experts would again make sense. comment on ��, which means he is dead. In�� (��/John, ��/dead, ��/father), ��/John is the topic, ��(��/dead, ��/father) is the comment, which presents a comment on ��, which means his father is dead. In ��(�/water,��/boil), �/water is the topic, ��/boil comments on the water; in ��(�/book, �/read, � �/finish), �(book) is the topic, ��(�/read, ��/finish) is a comment – (I) have finished reading the book. The topic-comment relation introduces a question-answer relation between the subject and the predicate [3, p.81]. Imagine a man returns home after work, and asks his wife, ��? (where (is the) rice?) his wife answers, ��(all eaten). The man introduces a topic �/rice in a question; his wife comments on the topic by answering all eaten. B. Full Chinese Sentences A full Chinese sentence has a topic and a comment. 1) nominal expressions as comments: In ��(he is an American), �/he is a pronoun, ��/American is a noun. There is no link verb �/is between �/he and � ��/American. The Chinese Word Expert � (shortened as ‘CWE�’) asks its surrounding experts, for example, who can be my property? The CWE�� answers: I can be your property of nationality. If we view Chinese words as such active agents, instead of passive data as in the traditional rulebased grammar, the link verb �/be is not necessary. In �� (��/inside of the room, ��/many, ��/mosquito), the nominal expression �� is the predicate. The CWE� � asks: what is inside of the room? The CWE�� answers: many mosquitoes. The meaning of the sentence is there are many mosquitoes inside of the room. 2) active verbs as comments: In ��(this matter has long been published), ��(this matter) is the topic, ��/publish is a verb in the active form. In Chinese the passive form ��(be published) may not be used to mark the passive action – a construction taken for granted in English or German. However, from the word expert perspective, Chinese has more pragmatic efficiency in expressing meanings: the CWE�� asks: what can be published? the CWE�� answers: this matter. So, in Chinese, the passive form is indeed not necessary. In ��,��(wine, (I) do not drink, tobacco, (I) smoke), �/wine and �/tobacco are subjects, �/drink and �/smoke are verbs in the active form. The CWE�� asks: what not to drink? the CWE� answers: wine. The CWE� asks: what to smoke? the CWE� answers: tobacco. 3) adjective as comments: In � �(�/I, �/poor), the whole comment is one adjective word �. The meaning of the sentence is I am poor. The CWE� asks: how about me? The CWE� answers: poor. In ��(�/dish, �/salty), the whole comment is one adjective word �. The CWE� asks: who can serve my property? The CWE� answers: salty. The meaning of the sentence is the dish is salty. 4) full sentences as comments: In ��(��/this, �/man, ��/ear, �/soft), the comment is a full sentence � ��. The direct translation is (as for) this man, the ear is soft. The CWE�� and the CWE�� ask: what is my property?
The CWE� answers to both: soft. As the CWE� is nearer to the CWE�� than to the CWE��, its answer was first accepted by the CWE��. As a result a new word expert CWE�� is formed which means gullible. This new expert answers the question raised by CWE��. The meaning of the sentence is this man is gullible. From this example we propose two principles for communications among Chinese word experts as follows: Chinese WE Principle 1: Neighborhood word experts have the priority in communication. Chinese WE Principle 2: New word experts may appear after successful communications and play roles in communication with other experts. In � �� (� �/this, �/man, � �/mind, � �/simple), the comment is a full sentence ��. The direct translation is this man (is such that his) mind is simple. The meaning of the sentence is the mind of this man is simple. With the two principles, the CWE�� first communicates with the CWE��, and forms a new word expert CWE�� , which answers the question of the CWE��. The whole process can be simulated by two question-answer rounds: - how about the mind? -simple -how about this man? -mind is simple. 5) verbal expressions as topics: In ��,��(�/go, �/all right, �/not, �/also), verbal expressions � and �� are topics. The meaning of the sentence is to go is all right, not to go is also all right. Primitive verbs as subjects are neither allowed in English nor in German, but very normal in Chinese, and can be easily explained from the word expert perspective. The CWE� asks: shall I perform? The CWE� answers: all right. The CWE�� asks: can I not perform? The CWE� answers: all right. 6) Spatial-temporal expressions as topics: In ��(� �/today,�/cold), the temporal expression ��is the topic. The meaning of the sentence is today is cold. The CWE�� asks: how is today? The CWE� answers: cold. In �� ? (��/here,�/is,��/where), the spatial expression � �is the whole topic. The meaning of the sentence is where is here? The CWE�� asks: where is here? The CWE�� will communicate with word experts in the next sentence for an answer. 7) conditional expressions as topics: In �� (�/he,��/dead,��/if,��/simply,�� /unthinkable), the topic is the conditional expression �� . The meaning of the sentence is the supposition that he should die is simply unthinkable. The CWE� asks: how is he? The CWE�� answers: dead. The CWE�� asks: what will be the result under what condition? The CWE�� serves the condition, the CWE�� serves the result. 8) prepositional expressions as topics: In � � � � � ��(�/through,��/chairman,��/convene,��/meeting), the topic is a prepositional expression ��. The meaning of the sentence is the meeting is convened through the chairman. The CWE� asks: through what? by whom? The CWE� � answers: chairman. A new word expert CWE�� is formed. The CWE�� asks: who convenes what? how to convene? The CWE�� answers the how question, the CWE� � answers the who question, and the CWE� � answers the what question. 9) full sentences as topics and comments: In �� (�/he, ��/dead, �/I, �/awfully, ��/feel bad), the topic is a full sentence ��(he is dead), the comment is also a full sentence ��(I feel awfully bad). The direct translation is he is dead, I feel awfully bad. The meaning of the sentence is that he is dead is something about which I feel awfully bad. The CWE� asks: how is he? the CWE� � answers: dead. The CWE�� asks: how? what is the result? The CWE� asks: how about myself? The CWE� �� answers: awfully bad. The CWE�� answer the question: what is the result? If the sentence is ��, � �(�/he, ��/dead, ��/traffic accident), the CWE�� will answer the question of the CWE��: how come? We conclude that structures of full Chinese sentences violate many important grammar rules of Western languages, and that understanding full Chinese sentences can be achieved by communications among Chinese word experts following some communication principles. The meaning of a full Chinese sentence can be represented by a dialog process among the word experts. C. Minor Sentences In conversations, it is normal that one speaker introduces a topic and the other makes a comment. This introduces the term of minor sentence [3, p.60]. In contrast to full sentence, a minor sentence does not have both topics and comments. The above conclusion is supported by the structure of Chinese minor sentences in that a speaker in a conversation may only say a few words to answer the questions raised by word experts of the other speaker. D. Compound and Complex Sentences By parallelizing two or more sentences, we can construct compound Chinese sentences. For example, ��, � ��(you do not know me and I do not know you) is a compound sentence by parallelizing two ‘A �� B’ (A does not know B) sentences. By nesting one full sentence either in topic or in comment, we can construct complex sentences. For example, ��(�/I,��/dead,� �/funeral,��/simple)is a complex sentence, meaning when I die, the funeral should be simple, constructed by using a full sentence ��(I die) as the topic. Both of the two structures can be easily explained in the word expert framework with the second communication principle (Chinese WE Communication 2) and the third communication principle as follows. Chinese WE Principle 3: A newly formed word expert has priority over old ones in communication. With this principle, although both CWE�� and CWE�� answer the CWE��’s conditional question, CWE� �� is newly formed and has the priority. E. Pivotal Constructions A Chinese sentence with a pivotal construction has normally two verbs and a nominal expression. This nominal expression
Page 1: Word Expert Translation from German
Page 5 and 6: Fig. 2. MultiNet representation of

Word Expert Translation from German into Chinese in - Knowledge ...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?