| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Assistance in writing my PhD thesis Thread poster: Victoria Ru
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Victoria Ru
Local time: 01:00
English to Russian
TOPIC STARTER
Thank you, Sheila!
I'll try to explain what I've already done. I know that MT is a very complex thing, but maybe I can make a small contribution in it or more globally in automatic text processing. Well, you know, Asians have lots of problems with English Passive voice. They can form a passive from intransitive verbs (e.g. to occur, to happen, to exist etc.), they can also mallform a passive (is chose, is strengthen), so these problems can lead some misunderstanding, losing information and... See more Thank you, Sheila!
I'll try to explain what I've already done. I know that MT is a very complex thing, but maybe I can make a small contribution in it or more globally in automatic text processing. Well, you know, Asians have lots of problems with English Passive voice. They can form a passive from intransitive verbs (e.g. to occur, to happen, to exist etc.), they can also mallform a passive (is chose, is strengthen), so these problems can lead some misunderstanding, losing information and other bad effects especially if their text are processed by a machine. So I wrote some algorythms to help them find and correct such mistakes automatically.
I can automatically change the voice if it's wrong or correct the passive form as well. Is that worth doing, what do you think?
I've surveyed some grammar checkers and MSOffice checker - they can't correct the overpassivisation mistake, but they can correct the form (but not always; I can't get the rule thy use for this so far) ▲ Collapse
| | | | NataliaAnne 
Brazil
Local time: 19:00
Portuguese to English
| Lots of potential for misunderstanding! | Apr 4, 2013 |
Sheila Wilson wrote:
Good luck to them! I fail to see how anything other than GIGO can result from this. I'm not sure if that's a common acronym nowadays, but it means "Garbage in; garbage out".
I know what you mean – I had to guess what several of them meant! lol
| | | | Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 23:00
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
| Too easy to jump to false conclusions, IMO | Apr 4, 2013 |
Victoria Ru wrote:
I can automatically change the voice if it's wrong or correct the passive form as well. Is that worth doing, what do you think?
I've surveyed some grammar checkers and MSOffice checker - they can't correct the overpassivisation mistake, but they can correct the form (but not always; I can't get the rule thy use for this so far)
I have no idea what automated systems can and cannot do in practice, but I would have thought that if people are going to make such basic grammatical mistakes, they are also going to pepper their sentences with other mistakes, including jumbling the words. I don't see how any automated system can sort that out. I specialise in monolingual editing i.e. taking texts written directly in English by non-native speakers and polishing them. Even with the context of the surrounding sentences, I doubt that I'd have been able to correct some of those sentences with 100% certainty. I would have had to discuss them with the writer. Even a small error such as "a tables" can be impossible for me to change - how do I know whether "a table" or "tables" was intended? Even if the verb seems to help, if the overall standard of the text is poor then it could actually serve to mislead.
But I'm all for research, even if some routes eventually turn out to be blind alleys.
| | | | Phil Hand
China
Local time: 06:00
Chinese to English
| I'm with Sheila | Apr 4, 2013 |
Language is for carrying meaning, and any attempt to play these formal surface games with it is ultimately going to fail.
I don't believe for a second that you can actually develop a program to reliably turn English verbs passive or active - it's a much harder problem than you might think. But let's say for the sake of argument that you could. How would you identify in a text which verbs need to have their voice changed?
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Victoria Ru
Local time: 01:00
English to Russian
TOPIC STARTER | The hardest task ever | Apr 4, 2013 |
I know that as a global task it's almost impossible to correct it. But with intransitive verbs (that have only intransitive meanings) I can, because they MUST always be in the Active Voice. And I can correct the form if it's necessary. By the way, the circle of their grammatical mistakes is quite small and they are certainly professionals in their specialisation, so word jumbling is not so frequent in texts of a such level. And if you know the reason for such mistakes (it comes from thier native... See more I know that as a global task it's almost impossible to correct it. But with intransitive verbs (that have only intransitive meanings) I can, because they MUST always be in the Active Voice. And I can correct the form if it's necessary. By the way, the circle of their grammatical mistakes is quite small and they are certainly professionals in their specialisation, so word jumbling is not so frequent in texts of a such level. And if you know the reason for such mistakes (it comes from thier native tongue, its grammatical, phonetical etc. system) it is much easier to find the mistake and correct it. And if you know where they can make a mistake, it's quite easy to predict it and maybe to teach them (if it's not late, but it's never too late to learn!)
I'd like to thank all of you for your attention and help and your comments. That is a great experience. I'm glad to find such a useful site and such intelligent and pleasant people here.
[Edited at 2013-04-04 15:59 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Machine Translation: GIGO - Garbage in, garbage out | Apr 4, 2013 |
Sheila Wilson wrote:
I fail to see how anything other than GIGO can result from this. I'm not sure if that's a common acronym nowadays, but it means "Garbage in; garbage out".
Sheila,
I had never seen before this excellent, perfectly descriptive acronym. It definitely has its place among the vocabulary of established, commonly recognizable English acronyms. (Like FIFO, right?)
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Done
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