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From: mathias@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Gerald B Mathias)
Subject: Re: Machine Translation
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References: <5+2VgIb.padrote@delphi.com> <780629398snz@storcomp.demon.co.uk> <1994Sep27.160514.1@ctdvx5.priv.ornl.gov>
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 1994 01:33:09 GMT
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s25@ctdvx5.priv.ornl.gov wrote:

["this passage" removed for quicker reading]

:    This passage is "para morirse de reir", but it points out a few serious 
: things about machine translation. In the second sentence, the words "su pecho"
: in Spanish could mean either "his chest" or "her chest". You can only figure
: out which one is correct from the context. 
:  The computer has no knowledge of the context, so it
: cannot decide. Indeed, Spanish often omits subject pronouns, and without
: context there is no way of deciding who is acting. This is why the program
: writes "it straightened up" - the original Spanish is "se erguio'" and if you
: take the sentence in isolation - ignoring the context of the passage
: - there is no way to decide who or what is straightening itself.

: John

This doesn't say so much against machine translation as against one program
that should not have been marketed because it isn't finished.  It's dumb
to sell a translation program that can't check the context for things that
require it.

Bart
