Structural translation with synchronous rewriting systems

Abstract

In the VERBMOBIL project, a dialogue in English between two non-native speakers of English can be assisted on demand by the VERBMOBIL translation system. In this situation, we propose to apply Synchronous Rewriting Systems (SRSs) for a transfer step of varying depth (Anytime-approach). In an SRS, each rule of the source grammar and its corresponding rule in the target grammar are pairwise related. Futhermore the recursion operation is restricted to take place in parallel only in linked nodes. For a structural transfer, German and English syntactic constructions are directly related. The size of a rule can vary from word level up to a whole dialogue contribution. We propose this kind of processing as appropriate to early interruptions and conventionalized speech acts.