An investigation into the use of argument structure and lexical mapping theory for machine translation

Wong, Shun Ha Sylvia (2000). An investigation into the use of argument structure and lexical mapping theory for machine translation. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

In recent work on the Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG) formalism, argument structure (a-structure) and lexical mapping theory have been used to explain many linguistic behaviours across languages. It has been suggested that the combination of c-structure, f-structure and a-structure might form a suitable architecture for Universal Grammar. If this suggestion is valid, the LFG formalism would be a suitable linguistic model for Machine Translation (MT). This thesis reports on the investigations carried out on using a-structure and lexical mapping theory for aiding various sub-tasks in MT. The two investigations described in this thesis are the abilities of a-structure and lexical mapping theory to: (1) aid different kinds of lexical and structural disambiguations involving verbs and prepositions, and (2) act as a suitable medium for carrying out source-to-target language transfer. Based on the results of these investigations, this thesis also gives an evaluation of how well a-structure and lexical mapping theory can improve the existing models of linguistic-based MT.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

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