Knowledge-based disambiguation for machine translation

The resolution of ambiguities is one of the central problems for Machine Translation. In this paper we propose a knowledge-based approach to disambiguation which uses Description Logics (DL) as representation formalism. We present the process of anaphora resolution implemented in the Machine Translation system FAST and show how the DL system BACK is used to support disambiguation. The disambiguation strategy uses factors representing syntactic, semantic, and conceptual constraints with different weights to choose the most adequate antecedent candidate. We show how these factors can be declaratively represented as defaults in BACK. Disambiguation is then achieved by determining the interpretation that yields a qualitatively minimal number of exceptions to the defaults, and can thus be formalized as exception minimization

Dialogue acts in automatic dialogue interpreting

In this paper we demonstrate that for an adequate translation of an utterance spoken in a dialogue the dialogue act it performs has to be determined. We introduce an approach that automatically assigns types of dialogue acts to utterances on the basis of both micro- and macro-structural information. Technically, this assignment is realized by modeling preference rules as weighted defaults in the Description Logic system FLEX. The dialogue-act type of an utterance is determined by qualitatively minimizing the exceptions to these defaults. The results described here have been developed within the VERBMOBIL project, a project concerned with face-to-face dialogue interpreting funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Technology (BMBF). We present the rather positive results of a first evaluation of this implementation showing the accuracy of dialogue act assignment

The VERBMOBIL domain model version 1.0

This report describes the domain model used in the German Machine Translation project VERBMOBIL. In order make the design principles underlying the modeling explicit, we begin with a brief sketch of the VERBMOBIL demonstrator architecture from the perspective of the domain model. We then present some rather general considerations on the nature of domain modeling and its relationship to semantics. We claim that the semantic information contained in the model mainly serves two tasks. For one thing, it provides the basis for a conceptual transfer from German to English; on the other hand, it provides information needed for disambiguation. We argue that these tasks pose different requirements, and that domain modeling in general is highly task-dependent. A brief overview of domain models or ontologies used in existing NLP systems confirms this position. We finally describe the different parts of the domain model, explain our design decisions, and present examples of how the information contained in the model can be actually used in the VERBMOBIL demonstrator. In doing so, we also point out the main functionality of FLEX, the Description Logic system used for the modeling

Dialogue acts in VERBMOBIL

Die vorliegende Arbeit wurde im Rahmen des Verbundvorhabens Verbmobil vom Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie (BMBF), unter dem Förderkennzeichen 01 IV 101 K / 1 gefördert. Die Verantwortung für den Inhalt dieser Arbeit liegt bei den AutorInnen.In the first phase of the VERBMOBIL project (’93-’94) several project partners worked on different aspects of dialogue acts. In Spring ‘94 a meeting was held, in which dialogue acts were discussed in detail and a common terminology was proposed (see [7] for a presentation of these results). For several reasons, which we will discuss in more detail below, a «restandardization» of the dialogue acts to be used in VERBMOBIL became necessary, however. In order to achieve such a restandardization, it was decided to organize a small meeting, in which all groups working with dialogue acts would be represented. The main part of this report contains detailed descriptions of the dialogue acts agreed upon during this meeting, thereby updating the presentations in [7] and [14]. To put our general understanding of dialogue acts into perspective, we also describe briefly the general context of VERBMOBIL and the different uses of dialogue acts in the VERBMOBIL system. In doing so we refer the interested readers to the respective publications which describe these applications in more detail

Dialogue Acts in Automatic Dialogue Interpreting

In this paper we demonstrate that for an adequate translation of an utterance spoken in a dialogue the dialogue act it performs has to be determined. We introduce an approach that automatically assigns types of dialogue acts to utterances on the basis of both micro- and macro-structural information. Technically, this assignment is realized by modeling preference rules as weighted defaults in the Description Logic system FLEX. The dialogue-act type of an utterance is determined by qualitatively minimizing the exceptions to these defaults. The results described here have been developed within the VERBMOBIL project, a project concerned with face-to-face dialogue interpreting funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Technology (BMBF). We present the rather positive results of a first evaluation of this implementation showing the accuracy of dialogue act assignment. 1 Introduction One of the fundamental prerequisites in the design of a Machine Translation (..