Báo cáo khoa học: "Problems of Equivalence in Some German and English Constructions"

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The time has come when well-organized and thoroughly worked out transfer grammars should be developed. Such a grammar should be composed of formal statements equating the construction-types of the input language with those of the output language and indicating the appropriate transformations which must be made to produce the target language constructions.

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[Mechanical Translation, Vol.7, no.1, July 1962] Problems of Equivalence in Some German and English Constructions by John S. Bross,* Massachusetts Institute of Technology The time has come when well-organized and thoroughly worked out transfer grammars should be developed. Such a grammar should be com- posed of formal statements equating the construction-types of the input language with those of the output language and indicating the appropriate transformations which must be made to produce the target language constructions. In connection with the problem of structural transfer, a study was made of the behavior of some English verbs and their German equivalents in a fixed number of constructions. The verbs were grouped in syntactic classes on the basis of their respective distributions. The conditions were stated under which it is possible to use the same combination of con- stituents in a construction when translating from German to English and vice versa. This work should be regarded as a preliminary study of that information about syntactic restrictions on verbs which should be encoded in an auto- matic dictionary as an aid in solving problems of structural transfer. The problem of translation may be divided into three cumstances, if mechanical translation is to be realized, stages, as suggested by Yngve1: analysis (recognition), some sort of exhaustive formal list of the constructions structural transfer, and synthesis (construction). In the in the output language which are equivalent to the con- first stage, the syntactic structure of a sentence in the structions in the input language is needed. The com- input language is analyzed and noted in terms of struc- pilation of such a list will, admittedly, be a laborious and tural specifiers; in the second stage, the input language tedious task. specifiers are mapped onto output language specifiers; To any one working with languages which employ in the third stage these output language specifiers are similar constructions for expressing the same idea, the used to construct the equivalent sentence in the output need for an exhaustive transfer grammar may not be so language. obvious. The easier and quicker solution to the problem, To date considerable work has been published on the as it concerns similarly structured languages, appears, analysis of languages both from the viewpoint of de- at first blush, to be simply to make a word-for-word scriptive linguistics and from the viewpoint of linguistics translation, following which a modicum of rearranging applied to problems of mechanical translation. Also an of words would be carried out. The translation resulting ever increasing amount of attention is being devoted to from such a procedure would presumably be under- sentence generation and, in particular, to the construc- standable to those familiar with the general subject mat- tion of a generative grammar of English. In regard to ter, but it would be so sadly lacking in style as to be in- structural transfer, some work has been done by Harris2 comprehensible to others. and his followers and recently an introductory study of The research problems which will be encountered in the problem was made at Harvard by Foust and Walk- the compilation of a transfer grammar for structurally ling.3 Nevertheless, comparatively little concrete progress similar languages are probably more complex than those has been made in the construction of adequate transfer encountered in the compilation of a transfer grammar grammars, even though structural transfer is the most for structurally dissimilar languages, because the tempta- crucial part of the translation process. tion is greater to assume that, because construction c in Language A is translatable by construction c' in Lan- The Need for Transfer Grammars guage B some of the time, c' will always be an accept- The need for a transfer grammar is obvious to anyone able translation of c. The constructions c and c' may, in working with languages where the syntactic construc- fact, be equivalent only with certain classes of words. tions used to express a given meaning in the one lan- For example, the sentences Er zog vor, zu arbeiten guage differ radically from those used to express the and He preferred to work are based on the same under- same meaning in the other language. Under these cir- lying structure (Noun + Verb + Infinitive phrase), but only by a study of individual verbs—or of mistrans- * Now at the Computation Laboratory of Harvard University. This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation and in lations—would one discover that Er hoerte auf zu part by the U.S. Army (Signal Corps), the U.S. Air Force (Office of Scientific Research, Air Research and Development Command), and arbeiten requires a differently structured sentence in the U.S. Navy (Office of Naval Research). The author wishes to thank English as an equivalent, namely He stopped going to Miss Renata A. Hofman, Mrs. Ruth Ward, and Miss Rosemarie Sträuss- nigg for their patient help as native German informants at various school. stages in this study. 8
Organization and Operation of a Transfer Grammar For purposes of this paper, it is assumed that a list There are various ways of constructing a transfer gram- of numbers marking the word as a member of one mar, ranging from ad hoc statements of structural trans- or more syntactic classes has been appended to each formations to elaborate statements of equivalence. In word in the dictionary. It is also assumed that the any case, the final transfer grammar should consist transfer grammar consists of statements of structural of a list of statements of structural transformations. transfer in which the constituents of the output lan- The various kinds of structural transformations will in- guage constructions are marked appropriately as mem- clude insertion, deletion, full or partial substitution bers of these same syntactic classes. (modification) and rearrangement of words (permuta- The executive program of the transfer grammar will tion). Whenever a construction in one language may use syntactic information in the following way. It will be translated into the other language with the same type look for and select an output language construction of construction, the statement to this effect can be whose constituents are in the same syntactic classes as very brief in the final transfer grammar. the particular output language words involved. For As envisaged by the author, a transfer grammar will example, if the output language equivalent of a given be activated after a text in the input language has verb is intransitive, a construction will be selected which been analyzed syntactically and after the output lan- calls for an intransitive verb; if, on the other hand, guage lexical equivalents for each input language word the only possible translation of a given construction is have been found. The transfer grammar will be made one with a transitive verb, and there are two possible up of a small executive program and a list of statements translations of the given verb, then the verb which is which will indicate the construction or alternative con- transitive will be selected. Thus, although work means structions which may be used in the output language as both arbeiten and bearbeiten, in the context He worked a good translation of any given construction in the the clay only the transitive verb bearbeiten would be input language. selected in a translation into German because the equiv- The executive program will first locate the input alent German construction requires a transitive verb language construction in the list of statements of struc- and this fact would have been noted in the transfer tural transfer. Then it will select from the list those grammar. This simple example illustrates how syntactic equivalent output language constructions in which the compatibility can be used to decide among alternative particular lexical items under consideration can appear. constructions and words in translation. If the grammar This selection will be made on the basis of syntactic has been properly constructed, there should be at least information stored in the dictionary, and in the trans- one construction which is compatible with the syntactic fer grammar. class requirements of the individual words concerned. Along with each lexical item in the output language When more than one construction and lexical item in dictionary there will be stored information not only the output language are compatible, the appropriate about the general syntactic function of the item, e.g., intersection may have to be selected with semantic cri- noun, verb, adjective, but also about the particular con- teria or according to some set of priorities. structions with which this item may or may not be The following example may serve as a somewhat used. In other words, not only will the fact that a more complicated illustration of how the transfer gram- given lexical item is, say, a verb be stored in the dic- mar described above would operate. A statement is tionary, but also the various constructions which this needed to express the fact that the German sentence verb governs will likewise be stored in the dictionary. Der Mann fährt ihr den Wagen should be translated This information may be stored in the dictionary in as The man drives the car for her. The following crude various ways. One method would be simply to append to equation could be placed in the transfer grammar: each word in the dictionary a complete list of the con- NP1/case nom + VERB/x + NP2/case dat structions with which that word can be used. This list + NP3/case acc could be compressed and stored efficiently as one or = NP1/case subj + VERB/x' + NP3/case obj two twelve-character machine words in any automatic + for + NP2/case obj dictionary with a format similar to that of the Harvard Automatic Dictionary developed by Oettinger.4 Each where x stands for specifiers of tense, number, and position in the machine word could be used to identify person and x' stands for the corresponding English a whole list of syntactic constructions. Another method morphological specifiers. NP stands for either a noun of storage would be to place the words which can with its modifiers or a pronoun. Only in regard to pro- occur in the same construction or groups of construc- nouns will the case specifiers be needed in English. tions in the same syntactic classes and then append to The above sentences can be successfully translated by each word in the dictionary the list of syntactic classes applying this equation. If this statement of structural to which that word belongs. This list would hopefully equivalence were always valid, all that one would need be brief enough to make elaborate encoding unnec- to say about a verb would be that it was a verb, and essary. This is the method of storage envisioned in this further specification would be unnecessary. paper. The preceding equation, however, will not yield the 9
correct English translation for a sentence like Der Mann were closely studied in these fifteen constructions. It gibt dem Mädchen ein Buch. According to the equa- was noted which verbs can be substituted in any given tion, this sentence would be translated as The man construction and which cannot. The results of this study gives a book for the girl, instead of the correct sentence were compared with results of a similar study of sixty- The man gives a book to the girl, or more simply, The five approximately equivalent German verbs in the man gives the girl a book. (We shall disregard the corresponding German constructions. Native informants problem here of choosing the correct tense form of the were regularly used in the study of the German verbs. verb, since this problem should be coped with at an- The methods of substitution used were similar to other level in the transfer grammar.) In order that those used by Harris and by Fries, among others. From mistranslations do not result, the verb give should be the various selected predicate constructions, the verb marked in some way so that it will not be treated in head was extracted. The remainders of these con- the same manner as drive and add. structions were called, after the terminology of Harris, Although the words in any language function to- diagnostic environments.5 For example, He . . . into the gether in syntactic constructions within the overall park is a diagnostic environment of the verb run. The structure of that particular language, it is possible for string of morphemes He ... into the park cooccurs with limited purposes to equate some of the constructions of various forms of the paradigm of the verb run. Also similarly structured languages. Thus, the sentences Der this string of morphemes can be used as a sample diag- Mann gibt dem Mädchen ein Buch and The man gives nostic environment in which other verbs can be sub- the girl a book may be said to have the same structure, stituted, e.g. in this study, jump. This was a test of since they both consist of subject + verb + indirect syntactic, not semantic substitutability. Therefore, animate object + direct inanimate object. In this par- whenever there was any doubt as to the syntactic ticular construction the ordering of the elements is substitutability of any verb in a given environment, also the same. The verbs give and geben may be con- one of the words in this environment was replaced by sidered as structurally identical in regard to this con- another word which can fit in the same slot, i.e. by struction, since they fulfill the same role and govern another member of the same syntactic class. In the the same types of objects in their respective linguistic above environment park can be replaced by ocean. systems. All that is needed in the transfer grammar to Thus it may be verified that jump is substitutable in translate constructions in which a verb like geben ap- this environment. Those verbs which are mutually sub- pears is a simple statement of structural identity. In stitutable in one or more sample diagnostic environ- this study those verbs which can appear in construc- ments or in environments similar to these, were placed gives in the same class. tions exemplified by the man buys the girl a book Constructions Studied will be marked as 'Vt.indO'. Other verbs will be treated The German and English constructions which were in the same manner as drive and add in constructions assumed at the beginning of this study to be both involving an indirect object. structurally and semantically equivalent are listed be- Method and Objective of Present Study low. These verb constructions will be referred to throughout this report by the accompanying abbrevia- In line with the eventual goal of compiling a transfer tions. grammar for German and English, the author under- Parentheses around any constituent in one of these took the study of a selected number of German and constructions indicate that this constituent is an op- English verbs and constructions involving verbs. This tional member of the construction. study was concerned only with a restricted number NP stands for a pronoun or a noun phrase containing of those German and English constructions which are one or more constituents. both structurally similar and translationally equivalent. V stands for verb. The purpose of this study was to determine how closely Aux stands for the appropriate bound and free mor- structural similarity could be correlated with transla- phemes designating the number, tense, mood and voice tional equivalence in these two languages. This study of a verb. (Only active voice was considered here, how- was concerned, for example, with determining whether ever.) These morphemes include —s, —ø, —ed, —te, and to what extent a German verb followed by a cer- —ten, have, haben, sind, werden, will, etc. tain type of predicate complement can always be trans- Advloc stands for an adverb or adverbial phrase of lated by an English verb followed by the same type location. of complementation. This study was an attempt at determining which of the selected correspondences are Abbreviation Construction regular and predictable. SV NP—Aux—V Fifteen English constructions involving verbs were Sample Diagnostic Environments (DE): compared with seventeen corresponding German con- structions. Forty English verbs, selected because of the He... . wide variety of constructions in which they can appear, Er ... . 10
SVPN NP—Aux—V—Advloc Ger. NP1—Aux—V1—dass—NP2—(NP3) DE: He ... in the park. —V2—Aux DE: He . . . that it was raining. Er ... in dem Park. Er . . ., dass es regnete SVOCt Eng: NP1—Aux—V1—NP2—that—NP3— SVIp Eng: NP1—Aux—V1— ( in order) to—V2— Aux—V2—(NP4) (NP2) Ger: NP1—Aux—V1—NP2 —dass— NP3— Ger: NP1—Aux—V1—um—(NP2)—zu— (NP4)—V2—Aux V2 DE: He ... the man that it was raining. DE: He ... in order to please them. Er . . ., um ihnen zu gefallen. Er ... d— Mann—, dass es regnete.  so  SVIo Eng: NP1—Aux—V1—(to)—V2—(NP2) Eng: NP1—Aux—V1—in order that— SVCp Ger: NP1—Aux—V1—(NP2) —zu—V2 NP2—Aux—V2— (NP3) DE: He. . .to do this. Ger: NP1—Aux—V1—(so) dass—NP2— Er ... dies zu tun. (NP3)—V2—Aux SVOIo Eng: NP1—Aux—V1—NP2—(to)—V2— DE: He ... so that he might please them. (NP3) Er . . ., so dass er ihnen gefalle. Ger: NP1—Aux—V1—NP2—(NP3) —(zu) SVO SVOacc The German constructions SVOacc, —V2 SVOdat SVOdat, and SVOgen were all assumed to DE: He ... the man to do this. SVOgen be equivalent to the English construc- Er ... d— Mann—, dies zu tun. tion SVOacc (or, more simply, SVO) in SVintoN NP1—Aux—V—PrepPhrasedirection which case is not distinctively marked DE: He . .. into the park. except when O is a pronoun. Er ... in den Park. SVOacc NPnom—Aux—V—NPacc SVOintoN NP1—Aux—V—NP—PrepPhrasedirection DE: He. . .the book. DE: He ... the book into the park. Er ... das Buch. Er ... d— Buch— in den Park. SVO dat NPnom—Aux—V—NPdat DE: (not applicable in English) Analysis of Verb Distributions Er ... dem Mann. The entire distributions of some of the verbs considered SVOgen NPnom—Aux—V—NPgen in this study, i.e. the list of constructions with which DE: (not applicable in English) each verb can be used, can be determined by substi- Er ... des Buches. tution in the constructions analysed in this study, but the SVOPN NP1—Aux—V—NP2—Advloc distributions of other verbs cannot be completely deter- DE: He ... the book in the park. mined nor can the verbs, consequently, be assigned to Er ... d— Buch— in dem Park. all of the appropriate syntactic classes, until other con- SVOIp Eng: NP1—Aux—V1—NP2— (in order) to structions are considered. For example, the verb choose —V2— (NP3) may be substituted not only in several of the environ- Ger: NP1—Aux—V1—NP2—um—(NP3) — ments listed above, but also in the environment They zu—V2 . . . the man president. This should not be confused DE: He... the book in order to please with the similarly structured environment They . . . the them. man a dog, which is semantically and tranformationally Er ... d— Buch—, um ihnen zu ge-  for  fallen. related to They .. . a dog  to  the man. The environ- NP1—Aux—V1—NP2— so  SVOCp Eng: ment They . . . the man president was not considered in order  in this study, but should be taken into consideration that—NP3—Aux—V2— (NP4) when the distributions of the various verbs are being Ger: NP1—Aux—V1—NP2—(so) dass— determined. NP3—(NP4) —V2—Aux. Two other verbs in this study, treffen and meet are DE: He ... the book, so that he might members of a small, but noteworthy class of verbs, also please them. not considered in detail. This is the class of reciprocal Er ... d— Buch—, so dass er ihnen verbs. These verbs are obligatorily transitive when the gefalle. subject is singular, but when the subject is plural, the SVOdatOacc Eng: NP1—Aux—V—NP2—NP3 object may be omitted, e.g. She met the man in the park Ger: NP1—Aux—V—NPdat—NPacc and They met (each other) in the park, but not She met DE: He ... her a book. in the park. Er ... ihr ein Buch. In order to complete the distribution of verbs in Ger- SVCt Eng: NP1—Aux—V1—that—NP2—Aux— man and English, it may be useful to learn whether a V2—(NP3) specific noun is used with the verb. A somewhat dubious 11
example of this is the “verb” Rechenschaft ablegen at the distributions of their various German equivalents. meaning account for. This was treated both as a com- The ambiguous verbs in this study and their German pound verb in two parts and as a verb plus object. The equivalents here considered are the following: add, author was not completely satisfied with either treat- meaning say further—hinzufügen, add, as in add a ment. The German reflexive verbs present a similar prob- column of figures—addieren; stop, meaning cease—auf- lem. Should a reflexive pronoun used with the verb be hören, stop, meaning brake (an automobile)—anhalten, deemed an object or a part of the verb? In this study stop (momentarily), i.e. delay—aufhalten; tell, meaning sich with erinnern was considered as part of the verb relate—erzählen, tell, meaning command—befehlen, because sich erinnern has a different distribution from also tell, meaning say—sagen; see (with the eyes), also erinnern plus object. meaning understand—sehen, see meaning realize— ein- It may also be useful to discover if a particular prepo- sehen. sition is normally used with the verb with or without an Some German verbs also presented problems in mean- intervening object, e.g. account for, sich erinnern an, ac- ing. Usually only one meaning of each of these verbs was cuse (Object) of. dealt with and only one English equivalent for each of these verbs was analysed; treffen—meet, but also hit; Finally, in English verbs it may be useful in a transfer grammar to know which verbs can be used with an ob- wählen—choose, but also vote; and erklären—account ject verb in —ing, e.g. He stopped writing. This con- for, but also explain. struction will be considered in a later section in con- Syntactic Verb-classes nection with the German constructions SVIo and SVOIo. All of the verbs that were selected for study were tested The reader may wonder why a total of eight common in the constructions listed above. Those verbs which are transitive and intransitive constructions were used in- substitutable in the same construction or constructions stead of two in determining the distribution of the in- were placed in the same syntactic verb-class. Because of dividual verbs. These constructions were used to verify the great variation in distribution noted among the the transitivity and intransitivity of the verbs. It was dis- verbs, it proved impractical to place in the same class covered that it is possible to predict that any verb may only those verbs which are substitutable in the same appear in all of the constructions SVO, SVOPN, SVOIp, total collection of constructions. In the interest of sim- and SVOCp, if it can appear in any one of them. How- plicity, and also to show more clearly which English ever, it is not always the case that a verb which can ap- verbs may appear in the same construction as their pear in one of the common intransitive constructions SV, German equivalents, criteria for membership in a class SVPN, SVIp, and SVCp, may appear in all four. Some were generally reduced to the criteria of transitivity (or verbs are acceptable as constituents of some intransitive intransitivity) as a minimum. Most of the verbs were constructions, but not of others. For example, the verbs members of other classes as well. These classes have wissen, wollen, and mögen may occur in SV when an been labeled mnemonically. object O is understood from the context, but they can- Three of the more noteworthy syntactic classes are not appear in the other three intransitive constructions. those which distinguish obligatorily transitive verbs from In this report only those verbs which may occur in all obligatorily intransitive verbs and from optionally transi- four of the common intransitive constructions have been tive or intransitive verbs. considered as members of the obligatorily or optionally Obligatorily transitive verbs can all appear in the con- intransitive verb-classes. structions SVO, SVOPN, SVOIp, and SVOCp, but can- Finally, in connection with the distribution of indi- not appear in the constructions SV, SVPN, SVIp, or vidual verbs it should be noted that in this study usually SVCp.—For simplicity in this study the class of transi- only one meaning of a verb was considered in the de- tive verbs has been extended to include verbs govern- termination of the distribution of the verb. If a verb ing an object in the dative or genitive case. could appear in a certain construction, but had a differ- Obligatorily intransitive verbs, unlike the transitive ent meaning in that construction, the construction was verbs cannot appear in the constructions SVO, SVOPN, not included as part of the distribution. For example, SVOIp, or SVOCp, but may appear in the constructions want was analysed in the sense desire. It was not con- SV, SVPN, SVIp, and SVCp. sidered as a possible constituent of the construction SV, Optionally intransitive verbs are transitive verbs as in He wants, because in this construction want means which may appear in the above constructions in which lack. Nevertheless, two meanings each were considered obligatorily transitive verbs cannot appear; and con- of three English verbs: know, live and run. These verbs versely, optionally transitive verbs are intransitive verbs were considered essentially as homographs, each of which may appear in the above constructions in which which has a different distribution. There were also other obligatorily intransitive verbs cannot appear. verbs in this study which are ambiguous in the limited environments provided in these constructions. Only one In the presentation of verb-classes below, the follow- distribution of each of these verbs was worked out. Some ing conventions have been adopted: clues as to the limitation of the distribution of the vari- 1. A comma between verbs indicates that these verbs ous meanings of these verbs may be found by looking have the same total distribution, i.e. that these verbs are 12
and four common intransitive constructions, but they members of the same group of syntactic classes. cannot appear in any other of the constructions con- 2. A single semicolon between verbs indicates that these sidered in this study. verbs are members of different groups of syntactic Vt.obl—All Vt verbs in this study which were not listed classes. in class Vt.opt. 3. A double semicolon is placed before that group of None of the verbs in this class can appear in the con- verbs which may also be used in the common intransi- structions SV, SVPN, SVIp, or SVCp. tive constructions. The double semicolon separates Vt.obl.com—anblicken, annehmen, ansehen, aufrichten, obligatorily transitive verbs from optionally intransitive bearbeiten, bekommen, besprechen, betrachten, em- verbs. pfangen, erhalten, erörtern, kennen, unterstützen, In this study only two obligatorily intransitive verbs account for, discuss, know (meaning be acquainted were found. These have been classed as follows: with), look at, straighten, support; treffen, meet. These verbs can be used only with the four common Vi.com—arbeiten. transitive constructions SVO, SVOPN, SVOIp, and This intransitive verb can appear only in the common SVOCp. intransitive constructions SV, SVPN, SVIp, and SVCp. Vt.dat—raten; befehlen; erzählen, sagen, vorschlagen;; This class would also contain verbs like arrive, depart, helfen. disappear, and vanish. This class is small because many Whenever a verb of this class appears in a construc- normally intransitive verbs can appear in transitive con- tion where there is an animate noun used predicatively, structions with a cognate object. (See class Vt.opt.cog this noun will be in the dative case. below) Vt.gen—sich erinnern, gedenken. Vi.to—aufhören. Any noun used predicatively with a member of this This verb can appear not only in the common in- class may be in the genitive case. (With sich erinnern transitive constructions, but also in the construction the predicate noun may be used in the accusative case SVIo, as in Er hört auf das zu tun. after the preposition an.) Two verbs were found in this study to be anomalous. Vt.indO—machen, (Rechenschaft) ablegen; bewirken, These are the verbs wohnen and live (meaning dwell). erklären, hinzufügen; befehlen; tell; erzählen, sagen, They are anomalous syntactically because they may ap- vorschlagen, wünschen; aufhalten; auswählen, wäh- pear only in the construction SVPN. They have been len, fahren; bringen, nehmen, bring, take; make;; placed in a class designated as Va. addieren, anhalten, geben, kaufen, buy, give; unter- All the rest of the verbs in this study were placed in schreiben; laufen, springen. classes designated in part by Vt because they can all ap- All of these verbs may appear in the construction pear in the common transitive constructions SVO, SVOdatOacc, e.g. The man bought the boy a dog. SVOPN, SVOIp, and SVOCp. These verbs have been Vt.that—wissen, say, suggest; raten, advise; sich erin- classed as follows: nern, gedenken; vorziehen, prefer; mögen, wollen; bewirken, erklären, hinzufügen; befehlen; tell; erzäh- Vt.opt—stop, work; addieren, anhalten, geben, kaufen, len, sagen, vorschlagen; wünschen;; begreifen, ver- buy, give; leben, schlafen, live (not meaning dwell), stehen, einsehen, know (not meaning be acquainted sleep; begreifen, verstehen, einsehen, know (not with), understand, add; sehen, see; remember; meaning be acquainted with), understand, add; unterschreiben. sehen, see; remember; unterschreiben; sign; helfen; All of the verbs in this category can be used in the help, choose; run (meaning go quickly), jump; construction SVCt, e.g. He said that the sum was shin- laufen, springen; accept. ing. All of the verbs in this class may appear in the com- Vt.Othat—raten, advise; erinnern, mahnen, remind, mon intransitive constructions SV, SVPN, SVIp, and persuade; erzählen, sagen, vorschlagen; beraten; SVCp in addition to the common transitive and other tell;; sign, unterschreiben. constructions. All of the verbs in this class can be used in the con- Vt.opt.cog—leben, schlafen, live (not meaning dwell), struction SVOCt, e.g. He told her that the sun was shin- sleep; run (meaning go quickly), jump, laufen, ing. springen. Vt.to—want; sich erinnern, gedenken; vorziehen, prefer; These are all optionally transitive verbs. They may ap- aufhalten; wünschen;; helfen; help, choose; re- pear in transitive constructions only when the object is member. either a word which is identical with or derived from All of the verbs in this class can be used in the con- the verb, or a word which is synonymous with a word struction SVIo, e.g. He wanted to write a letter. which is identical with or derived from the verb, e.g. He Vt.Oto—raten; advise; erinnern, mahnen, remind, per- lived his life, He ran a run, He ran a race. suade; want; auswählen, wählen; befehlen; tell; Vt.opt.com—stop, work. beraten, überzeugen, überreden; helfen; help, These verbs can appear in the four common transitive choose; sehen, see; sign. 13
All of the verbs in this class can be used in the con- could test for substitutability in the construction NP— struction SVOIo as in The girl wanted the boy to write a Verb—NP—to—NPanim. In the transfer grammar all Ger- letter and She saw the boy go home. man SVOdatOacc constructions could be equated with NP—Verb— NP—for—NPanim. For example, Er kaufte dem Jungen ein Buch would become He bought a book Vt.into—fahren (meaning drive);; sehen, see; run for the boy. This structural transfer would be made ex- (meaning go quickly), jump; sign(?); laufen, cept when the English verb equivalent is a member of the springen. special, more easily definable class of verbs of presenting All of the verbs in this class, can be used in the con- and transport. When the verb is a member of this special struction SVintoN as in He jumped into the pool and class, the English construction would be NP—Verb— in the apparently similarly structured sentence He NP—to—NPanim. For example, Er brachte dem Jungen signed into the hotel. ein Buch would be translated as He brought a book to the Vt.Ointo—bringen, nehmen, bring, take; fahren; re- boy. By using short-cuts such as this, the problems of ceive, run, (meaning operate); make;; run (mean- translation can be simplified and dealt with more go quickly) (?), jump; laufen, springen; accept; quickly. Such short-cuts as this one have the advantage sign. also of simplification of the problem without alteration All of the verbs in this class can be used in the con- or distortion of the meaning of a given construction. struction SVOintoN as in He brought the book into the Anyone trying to determine the exact distributions of room. German and English verbs should be alert to the various Some Comparisons of the Distributions constructions in which the verbs of the one language of German and English Verbs have been observed to be substitutable, while their equivalents in the other language are not. While more The problem of determining the distributions of German German verbs may appear in the construction SVOdatOacc and English verbs and of assigning the verbs to syn- than their English equivalents, more English verbs may tactic classes for use with a transfer grammar can be appear in the constructions SVintoN and SVOintoN than simplified if general rules of equivalence can be for- their German counterparts. A total of eleven instances mulated so that it will be possible to predict that when- of this difference were noted. ever a verb v is used in input language A in construction Verbs of motion and transport in both German and c, its equivalent v' in the output language B can be English may appear in these two constructions, e.g. He used in construction c'. As an aid in making general jumps into the water, He brings the book into the park: statements and predictions of this kind, the respective Er springt ins Wasser, Er bringt das Buch in den Park. distributions of equivalent German and English verbs However, there is a marginal group of English verbs were compared. The distribution of each member of which may be used in one or both of these constructions sixty-three out of the sixty-five pairs of German and while their German equivalents may not. For example, English verbs considered were found to vary from one the sentence He made the box into a table has a differ- another in not more than five constructions. Both mem- ent structure in its German translation, as may be seen bers of twenty-two of these verb pairs can occur in the in the sentence Er machte aus der Kiste einen Tisch. same constructions, and each member of twenty-two The sentence He signs into the hotel requires yet another of the verb pairs can occur in the same constructions construction in German, namely a reflexive and a prepo- as the other member of the pair except for one construc- sitional phrase of location instead of direction in the tion; in this construction one member of the pair may sentence Er schreibt sich in dem Hotel ein. In general, appear, but the other cannot. it may be said that all of the German verbs in this study The principal difference noted in the distributions of which can occur in the constructions SVintoN or the German verbs in contrast to those of their English SVOintoN can be translated into English with the same equivalents was that many German verbs can appear in type of construction with minimal change in meaning, the construction SVOdatO acc, while their English equiva- but this working rule does not hold in translation from lents cannot. This difference was noted in twenty verbs. English into German. Further, this difference is one-sided, that is to say that while the English equivalent of a German verb in this By using another construction in the tests of sub- construction cannot also be used in this construction, for stitutability the class of verbs useable in SVOintoN can every English verb which could appear in this construc- be subdivided into the verbs of motion and transport tion there is a German equivalent which can appear in and the remainder. This sub-class of verbs of motion the same construction. and transport includes an English equivalent for every Because this difference is so marked, it would seem German verb in the class and vice versa. The construc- expedient in the construction of a German-to-English tion that would be added to the test would be transfer grammar to eliminate the structurally similar SVOAdvdir:NP1—Aux—Verb—NP2—Advdirection, where English construct. This could simplify the task of deter- Advdirection is an adverb indicating a movement to an- mining the distribution of the English verbs. In place other geographical position, such as the adverb dahin or of testing for substitutability in this construction, one the obsolete thither in Er brachte das Buch dahin and 14
bearbeitet den Ton in dem Keller → He works the clay He brought the book thither. This construction makes it possible to distinguish bring into from make into. in the cellar. Striking similarities in the distributions of the German In this study it was observed that whenever a German verbs and of their English equivalents were noted in verb occurs in a common transitive or intransitive con- connection with the constructions SVCt, SVOCt, SVIo, struction, it may be translated by an English verb in and SVOIo. There were few instances noted in the verbs the similar English construction. When an English verb studied where a verb of the one language can appear in appears in a common transitive construction, one of its one of these constructions while its equivalent in the German equivalents may usually be used in a similarly other language cannot. This similarity in distributions structured German sentence. When, however, an Eng- was particularly noticeable in the constructions SVCt lish verb appears in a common intransitive construction, and SVOCt. it is not always possible to find a German equivalent Also in the constructions SVIo and SVOIo there is which may be translated in the similar German con- generally some German verb or other in the classes Vt.to struction. and Vt.Oto respectively which may be used as a transla- In sum then, as may be seen in Table 1, when one is tion of the English verb used in the input language trying to determine the distribution of German verbs, construction. However, this simple structural transfer he must be particularly alert to the possibility of “poor- cannot always be made in translation from German to ness of fit” in the constructions SVintoN, SVOintoN, English. Not all English verbs which are the equivalents SVPN, SVIp and SVCp. As touched upon earlier, Ger- of German verbs occurring in these two constructions man and English obligatorily transitive verbs may some- may be used in these same two constructions. For ex- times be used in the construction SV with the object ample, although Er hilft dies zu tun can be translated understood. One clue that is useful in determining the as He helps to do this, the translation of Er hört auf dies transitivity of German verbs is the prefix be—, as in zu tun as He ceases to do this is stilted. This sentence is bearbeiten. All of the German verbs in this study which more commonly translated with a construction involving have the prefix be— were found to be obligatorily a verb with the suffix —ing, e.g. He stops doing this. transitive. Consider also the verb vermeiden, which was not closely In the determination of the distributions of English examined in this study; this verb can occur in the con- verbs, one should be alert to the possibility of poorness struction SVIo, but it has no English equivalent which of fit in the construction SVOdatOacc, if this construction may appear in the corresponding English construction. When vermeiden appears in this construction, its Eng- TABLE 1. lish equivalent avoid appears in a construction verb + TRANSLATABILITY OF A FIXED NUMBER OF gerund or gerundive. Instead of an introductory particle GERMAN AND ENGLISH VERB CONSTRUCTIONS to there is a suffix —ing: Er vermeidet dies zu tun → He German English avoids doing this. Similarly, when a German verb ap- Constructions Constructions pears in the construction SVOIo, its English equivalent ↔ may be a verb which cannot be used in this construction. SVOPN SVOPN ↔ For example, the verb abhalten in SVOIo may be SVOIp SVOIp ↔ translated as keep in a dissimilar construction; Er hält SVOCp SVOCp ihn (davon) ab es zu tun → He keeps him from doing it. SVOacc More English verbs proportionally may be used than ↔ SVOdat SVO German verbs in the entire series of transitive construc- SVOgen tions, SVO, SVOPN, SVOIp, and SVOCp, combined ↔ with the common intransitive constructions SV, SVPN, SVCt SVCt ↔ SVIp, and SVCp, that is to say, more English verbs can SVOCt SVOCt → be used both transitively and intransitively than German SV SV → verbs. Because of this, the English verbs may be de- SVPN SVPN → scribed as having more flexibility structurally than their SVIp SVIp → German equivalents. A clear example of this is the verb SVCp SVCp → work. It is a member of class Vt.opt.com. It may be used SVintoN SVintoN → both transitively and intransitively, but only in the com- SVOintoN SVOintoN ← mon constructions. This verb has two German equiva- SVIo SVIo ← lents, arbeiten and bearbeiten. Arbeiten can only be SVOIo SVOIo ← used intransitively and bearbeiten can only be used SVOdatOacc SVOdatOacc transitively. The one verb work has structural flexibility An arrow means that with the verbs studied it is always and also semantic flexibility because it can be used to possible to translate a given construction in the input translate two differently structured sentences in which language into the output construction indicated. For an the meaning of the verb is somewhat different; Er explanation of the structural designations, see the list of arbeitet in dem Keller → He works in the cellar and Er constructions studied. 15
is included in the test, and in the constructions SVIo and these constructs. These verbs were then placed in a SVOIo in contrast to constructions where the verb is number of syntactic classes according to the construc- followed by a verb with the suffix —ing. tions in which they can be substituted. Thus oblig- The above statements about structurally equivalent atorily transitive, obligatorily intransitive, option- constructions in German and English should not be ally intransitive, and anomalous verbs were placed construed as universal laws, but simply as regularities in separate syntactic classes. In addition to being of correspondence affecting certain verbs. These state- a member of one of these classes each verb is a ments concern only a few of the possible types of output member of one or more other classes, if it can be fol- language constructions which are equivalent to a few lowed by an infinitive phrase with to or zu, a subordinate construction-types present in the input language. clause introduced by that or dass, a prepositional phrase The researcher in the field of mechanical translation of direction, or a predicate containing an indirect object. should use the structural equivalences presented here The list of syntactic classes to which a given verb be- only as a guide in the determination of the distribution longs may be stored in an automatic dictionary for use of individual verbs and in the writing of a simple trans- with a transfer grammar. fer grammar. The distributions of the verbs of each language were compared with the distributions of other verbs of the Summary same language and of the other language in order to discover predictable regularities that could be used for The problems of structural transfer constitute an im- portant part of mechanical translation and should be a more efficient determination of the distributions of other verbs not yet studied. Sometimes the distribution dealt with systematically and thoroughly. This study is of a verb in German can be used as an aid in determin- concerned with a detailed analysis of a very small, but ing the distribution of its equivalent in English and frequently used number of constructions that should be vice versa. Once the distribution of a verb is known, dealt with in a transfer grammar. Nineteen German it is a relatively easy matter to assign it to syntactic verb constructions were postulated as equivalent to seventeen English verb constructions. These were se- classes for use in mechanical translation. lected because a minimum of permutation and modifi- The German and English constructions that were cation is necessary to transform the constructions of the postulated at the beginning of this report as equivalent one language into the constructions of the other lan- were found to be equivalent only with certain types, or guage. classes, of verbs. This report has been an attempt at In order to test the postulated equivalences and to classifying German and English verbs and determining gather material needed for a rudimentary transfer gram- when a construction in one of the languages is equiva- mar, the writer tested forty English verbs and sixty- lent to a certain structurally similar construction in the four equivalent German verbs for substitutability in other language. References “Russian-English Structural Trans- uage Translation, Harvard Univer- fer: A Preliminary System,” Mathe- sity Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1. Yngve, V. H., “A Framework for matical Linguistics and Automatic (1960), Chapter VI. Syntactic Translation,” Mechan- Translation, Report No. NSF-6, 5. Harris, Z. S., “Co-occurrence and ical Translation, Vol. 4, No. 3 Harvard Computation Laboratory, Transformation in Linguistic Struc- (1957), pp 59-65. Section III (June, 1961). ture,” Language, Vol. 33 (1957), 2. Harris, Z. S., “Transfer Grammar,” 4. Oettinger, A. G., Automatic Lang- p. 284. IJAL, Vol. 20 (1954), pp 259-270. 3. Foust, W. D. and Walkling, J. R., 16