Semantic transfer in Verbmobil

Abstract

This paper is a detailed discussion of semantic transfer in the context of the Verbmobil Machine Translation project. The use of semantic transfer as a translation mechanism is introduced and justified by comparison with alternative approaches. Some criteria for evaluation of transfer frameworks are discussed and a comparison is made of three different approaches to the representation of translation rules or equivalences. This is followed by a discussion of control of application of transfer rules and interaction with a domain description and inference component.