Applications in Multilingual Machine Translation Applications in Multilingual Machine Translation

The CAT2 Machine Translation System, developed in Saarbr ucken in 1987, is a natural language application coded entirely in Prolog. Since its initial development, several languages have been implemented on an experimental basis to evaluate the translation methodology, the underlying formalism, the linguistic descriptions, and the e ectiveness of the Prolog implementation. Seven years later, it has evolved to the stage where it is now being tested in realistic industrial and academic environments. After brie y describing the current state of the formalism and its implementation, three current applications are described in which CAT2 is being used to perform fully automatic translations: (1) computer system messages between German, English and French, (2) medical diagnoses between Dutch, French and German, and (3) newspaper texts from Spanish to English. An evaluation presents areas still requiring attention. It is maintained that although the CAT2 system is still in a prototype stage, it is achieving a measure of success as a realistic piece of industrial software, at the same time contributing to our understanding of machine translation theory and practice. Randall Sharp DGSCA|UNAM Apdo Postal 20-059 04510 Mexico, D.F. [email protected] fax: +52-5-622-8540 Oliver Streiter IAI Martin-Luther-Stra e 14 D-66111 Saarbr ucken, Germany [email protected] fax: +49-681-39 74 82 In: Proceedings of PAP'95, The Practical Application of Prolog, April 3rd 6th 1995, Paris. Applications in Multilingual Machine Translation