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Conclusion

In this paper we showed the need for a non-standard notion of compositionality in translation. With the MiMo definition of compositionality we are able to define the translation of sentence level anaphora. In MiMo, anaphoric relations are defined by a separate type of rule. This enables linguists to define anaphoric relations in a declarative and modular way. It appeared that linguistic generalizations can be defined quite naturally and generally. It is up to the linguist to decide which generalizations are to be preferred and how they can best be expressed. We chose to formulate principles in a general way. The relation 'subjacent' was meant to serve all languages. Restrictions, e.g. by semantic features, can be added freely. The definitions relate to information that is encoded in the language-specific lexicon. This produces the variations that exist across languages.

The use of a separate type of rule enables a compositional definition of the translation of anaphoric relations because the applied rules are still visible - as annotations - in the structure to be translated. The translation of an I-object was defined as the translation of the I-structure to which the translations of the anaphoric rules applied. The translation of an anaphoric rule is the target equivalent of that rule. This point of view poses problems in cases where the source language is less restrictive than the target language. In that case, special rules have to be written to assign a translation nonetheless. When a particular relation (read also : interpreation) has been established in the source language, it should be present in the target language. All interpretations should be translated of course. This is not yet possible in the current system when unboundedly deep relations need to be seen in the transfer component.

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Gertjan van Noord
Fri Nov 25 13:16:14 MET 1994