The translation technology is based on the principles of slot grammar, a method of describing grammatical structures originally developed by IBM.\u00a0 The basic idea underlying slot grammar is that every sentence and each of its constituents has a central element (its head) and modifiers. For each head it can be determined what kinds of\u00a0slots\u00a0there are availabe for modifiers (fillers).<\/p>\n
The slots can be determined by the part of speech of by the word itself. Thus almost every noun can be modified by adjectives but only some nouns can be modified by phrases beginning with the preposition\u00a0to,\u00a0<\/em>e. g.:\u00a0message to the company<\/em>. The slots which are dependent on single words must be defined in the dictionary, since otherwise source language sentences can neither be correctly analyzed nor correctly translated.<\/p>\n The concept of a\u00a0slot\u00a0is central to the slot-grammar system. Slot grammar is based on the premise that every word has its own specific slots. Every meaning of a word must be considered, since the word\u00a0house<\/em>, for example, has different slots as a verb than as a noun. The concept of a\u00a0slot<\/em>\u00a0is related to existing concepts such as\u00a0complement<\/em>,\u00a0object<\/em>, and\u00a0attribute<\/em>.<\/p>\n The slots are filled by constituents known as\u00a0fillers, which can be individual words or even complete sentences. The German verb\u00a0schenken<\/em>, for example, determines that the\u00a0person giving the present <\/em>appears as the\u00a0subject<\/em>\u00a0of the sentence, the\u00a0person receiving the present<\/em>\u00a0as the\u00a0dative object<\/em>, and the present<\/em>\u00a0itself as the\u00a0accusative object<\/em>:<\/p>\n Er schenkt dem Kind ein Auto.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Slots which belong to a specific word are included in the dictionary as part of the entry for that word. Because a word can have several slots, the word is described as having a\u00a0slot frame<\/em>. The slot frame of the verb schenken<\/em> consists of\u00a0subject, accusative object, dative object<\/em>.<\/p>\n Slots can be\u00a0optional<\/em>, like the accusative and dative object in the case of\u00a0schenken<\/em>, or\u00a0mandatory<\/em>, like the accusative object of\u00a0verursachen<\/em>. Optional slots can be left empty, mandatory ones must be filled to create a complete sentence.<\/p>\n Slots\u00a0can be filled by different constituent parts of a sentence. These elements are known as\u00a0fillers<\/em>\u00a0and must be specified for the individual slots associated with each word.<\/p>\n With a verb like\u00a0schenken<\/em>, the accusative and dative objects are noun groups (constituent parts of a sentence whose head is a noun). In contrast, the accusative-object slot of the verb forget<\/em> can be filled by clauses starting with\u00a0that<\/em>\u00a0and by infinitive clauses, in addition to noun groups:<\/p>\n Er hat das Prinzip vergessen. translate<\/em> breaks a text down into individual sentences (or, in some cases, parts of sentences), and processes it sentence by sentence. Each sentence is first broken down into individual words, which are converted into the basic form and then looked up in the dictionary. The words are assigned their grammatical properties and possible translations. The sentence is then analyzed (or “parsed”), and split into its constituent parts. The translation itself takes place in two phases: the first phase involves lexical transfer, where each word is assigned the valid translation for the specific context, taking into account the options set by the user; the second phase is structural transfer, which ensures correct word order in the translation and carries out other necessary structural changes (see also\u00a0Correlating source-language and target-language complements,\u00a0Transformations). Finally, the correct word forms are generated and the final translation is produced.<\/p>\n In order to translate a sentence it is necessary not only to know the target-language words corresponding to the source-language words, but also the respective slot frames. Default correlations have been defined for the German and English\u00a0slots\u00a0(complements). For example, a standard correlation has been defined between the German accusative object and the direct object in English. For example:<\/p>\nSlots<\/h2>\n
Fillers<\/h2>\n
\nEr hat vergessen, dass das Prinzip gilt.
\nEr hat vergessen, das Prinzip zu beachten.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThe Way translate<\/em>\u00a0Operates<\/h2>\n
Correlating Source Language and Target Language Complements<\/h2>\n