Early years in machine translation

Memoirs and biographies of pioneers

Edited by W. John Hutchins

Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2000

[Studies in the History of the Language Sciences, vol.97]

ISBN: 90 272 4586; 1 55619 013 3

[For copyright reasons, the contents of this volume are not available online; contact the publisher]

Table of contents

Preface ……….. vii

Common abbreviations………. x

Acknowledgements, Cyrillic transliteration ………… xi

The first decades of machine translation: overview, chronology, sources – John Hutchins ……….. 1

Warren Weaver and the launching of MT: brief biographical note – John Hutchins ………… 17

Erwin Reifler and machine translation at the University of Washington – Lew R. Micklesen ………… 21

Early research at M.I.T.: in search of adequate theory – Victor H. Yngve ………. 39

Machine translation at Harvard – Anthony G. Oettinger ……….. 73

The Georgetown project and Leon Dostert: recollections of a young assistant – Muriel Vasconcellos ……….. 87

Is FAHQ(M)T possible? Memories of Paul L. Garvin and other MT colleagues – Christine A. Montgomery ………… 97

The early days of GAT-SLC – Michael Zarechnak ………… 111

Machine translation: just a question of finding the right programming language? – Antony F. R. Brown ………..129

From Serna to Systran – Peter Toma ……….135

My early years in machine translation – Winfred P. Lehmann ……….. 147

David G. Hays – Martin Kay ………..165

Gilbert W. King and the USAF Translator – John Hutchins …………171

Translation and the structure of language – Sydney M. Lamb …………177

Pioneering MT in the Soviet Union – Olga S. Kulagina ………..197

Machine translation and formal linguistics in the USSR – Igor A. Mel’čuk …………205

My memoirs of MT in the Soviet Union – Tat’jana N. Mološnaja …………227

MT in the former USSR and in the Newly Independent States (NIS): pre-history, Romantic era, prosaic time – Raimund G. Piotrovskij ……….233

Machine translation: early years in the USSR – Jurij N. Marčuk ………….243

The beginnings of MT – Andrew D. Booth and Kathleen H. V. Booth……….. 253

R. H. Richens: translation in the NUDE – Karen Sparck-Jones …………263

Margaret Masterman – Yorick Wilks …………279

Yehoshua Bar-Hillel: a philosopher’s contribution to machine translation – John Hutchins ……….299

Silvio Ceccato and the correlational grammar – Ernst von Glasersfeld ………… 313

Early MT in France – Maurice Gross ……….325

Bernard Vauquois’ contribution to the theory and practice of building MT systems: a historical perspective – Christian Boitet ………. 331

Pioneer work in machine translation in Czechoslovakia – Zdeněk Kirschner ……….349

Alexander Ljudskanov – Elena Paskaleva ………..361

Memoirs of a survivor – Hiroshi Wada ………..377

Index of names ………….387

Index of subjects ………….394

Location of photographs

Participants at US conferences …………xii

Weaver, Reifler, Yngve, Oettinger ……….. 16

Dostert, Garvin, Zarechnak, Toma …………146

Brown, Lehmann, Lamb ………… 196

Participants at USSR conference; Mel’čuk, Mološnaja, Reformatskij ………..232

Marčuk, Piotrowski, Booth ………..252

Richens, Masterman, Ceccato …………298

Sgall, Wada, Vauquois ……….

386