English-to-German Translation and German Parsing

With version 4.0, we are releasing a simple prototype system for translating English to German. We are also releasing a simple German dictionary which can be used for parsing sentences, similar to the standard link grammar English dictionary. These materials are found in the directory "translator", parallel to the directory "link-4.0" in the ftp directory.

The German Dictionary. The German dictionary can be parsed like a regular dictionary, in the following fashion. (This should be done from inside the link-4.0 directory. It requires that the directories are set up in the same way as in the ftp directory.)

     parse ../translator/german.dict -a ../translator/german.affix -ppoff -coff

We will not attempt to explain the logic of the German dictionary in depth. Obviously it is similar to the English ones in certain ways, reflecting similarities between English and German syntax. One important difference is that in the German dictionary, the "head" of a clause - the word which attaches to the outside world - is the finite verb, rather than the subject noun:

    +-------------------W------------------+
    |      +---------------CO--------------+
    |      +-------------Xc------------+   |
    |      +-----------C-----------+   |   |
    |      |   +---------Si--------+   |   +----Pa----+
    |      |   |   +---B--+--PPIt--+   |   +-SIi+     |
    |      |   |   |      |        |   |   |    |     |
LEFT-WALL als ich ihn gesehen.v habe.v , war.i ich froh.a

This is necessary, because in many cases the finite verb in a German clause (e.g. "war" in the sentence above) precedes the subject noun, but also connects to a word (a participle or adjective) further to the right. Having the subject noun connect to the left of the finite verb would prevent this connection. The above sentence illustrates another important difference as well: often, the link-types found in English grammar appear in inverted forms. Instead of an O link connecting a verb to a following direct object, we find a B link connecting them in the reverse order (of course B links are used also in English, e.g. in relative clauses). We may also find PPI links (instead of PP) connecting a form of "have" to a preceding past participle, II links (instead of I) connecting a verb to a preceding infinitive participle, and so on.

Connector subscripts prove to be extremely useful in the German dictionary, to enforce the complex rules of agreement between noun and verb forms, articles and nouns, and adjectives and nouns. In the case of nouns, for example, we have this:

     (((({@Ae-} & Dnmd-) or ({@Ar-} & Dnmi-)) & (Ss+ or SIs- or (Xd- & Xc+ & MX-))) or
     ({@An-} & Dam- & (O- or J*a- or B+)) or ({@An-} & Ddm- & (J*d- or JB+)));

Notice that different forms of the "D-" connector are conjoined with the S+ / SI-, O-, and J- connectors, indicating that different forms of article are needed depending on the case. (J*a- and J*d- indicate accusative and dative prepositions, respectively.) Also, different forms of adjective (A-) are needed in the nominative case, depending on whether the article is definite ("der") or indefinite ("ein").

The English to German Translator. The "translator" directory also contains a program for translating English into German. The program accepts an English sentence as input, and it parses it in the usual way. It then turns the resulting linkage into a "linkset"-- an unordered set of links. It replaces the English words with German equivalents, using "tables" (similar to link grammar dictionaries in format) representing these correspondences. It then manipulates the links of the linkset, replacing some links with others, adding and deleting some, etc., as required by German syntax. Finally, it uses the German dictionary (described above) to turn the new German linkage back into an ordered sequence of words. Click here to experiment with the online version of the translator; this version also provides a tutorial which gives more detail about the workings of the translator.