'protran' - a Generalized Translation Tool for Natural and Algorithmic Languages

Considerations of the problems inherent in mechanically translating between natural languages have given rise to a software tool, PROTRAN, which runs on IBM 36O/37O, and has been used successfully to translate between a wide range of computer languages. PROTRAN is a generalized double-string syntax analyzer-synthesizer to which are given, in a language-description language, two descriptions: that of the language to be translated from, and that of the language to be translated into. These descriptions are called "correlators". The system includes (i) the ability to parse input text according to such descriptions, (ii) the ability to transform conditionally parse trees into other, non-isomorphic, trees, (iii) the ability to manipulate text: in particular, to generate text from transformed parse-trees, (iv) the ability to both update and look-up tables (dictionaries), and (v) the ability to re-analyze partially parsed strings. The paper describes the general operation of PROTRAN, and illustrates specific techniques both by reference to computerlanguage translation, and to an Esperanto-English project. Possible future developments are discussed.