Ideally, we might hope to improve the performance of our MT systems by improving the system, but it might be even more important to improve performance by looking for a more appropriate application. A survey of the literature on evaluation of MT systems seems to suggest that the success of the evaluation often depends very strongly on the selection of an appropriate application. If the application is well-chosen, then it often becomes fairly clear how the system should be evaluated. Moreover, the evaluation is likely to make the system look good. Conversely, if the application is not clearly identified (or worse, if the application is poorly chosen), then it is often very difficult to find a satisfying evaluation paradigm. We begin our discussion with a brief review of some evaluation metrics that have been tried in the past and conclude that it is difficult to identify a satisfying evaluation paradigm that will make sense over all possible applications. It is probably wise to identify the application first, and then we will be in a much better position to address evaluation questions. The discussion will then turn to the main point, an essay on how to pick a good niche application for state-of-the-art (crummy) machine translation.- 2-1.

Communication using natural language is remarkably e cient, by allowing reuse (through the use of generative devices) of a nite vocabulary to describe a potentially innite set of situations. This vocabulary reuse contributes to words having many related senses (polysemy). Further, meanings can be relatively vague or precise � in other words, varying in their degree of speci cation of meaning. I suggest that these problems can be addressed by developing a knowledge representation which makes explicit the notion of granularity. As the grain size changes, we may fold certain distinctions, or split meanings more nely. In this paper, I formalize a theory of granularity and demonstrate how it can be applied to problems of meaning representation. Such a theory requires a world model which provides a rich sortal di erentiation of entities based on the distinctions made by natural language, including the representation of meronymic structure and rei-cation. Granularity will be represented in terms of structural operations de ned as abstractions. I illustrate how this applies to problems of polysemy and vagueness in nominalizations, where splitting and folding of meanings are particularly evident. 1

This paper is an attempt to survey the field in this period and to provide, in effect, an updating of the historical review completed in late 1984 and early 1985 (Hutchins 1986). The aim is to give a general picture of the recent developments of systems and projects already established at that time and to document the emergence of new systems and projects worldwide. Descriptions of individual systems are given in section II. This part outlines the main issues and lines of development at the present time. There is no claim of completeness, but it is hoped that all significant activities have been noticed

ABSTRACT: This paper concerns the treatment, in the context of machine translation, of English complex nominal groups which can be considered as nominalizations of verb phrases. We discuss the fact that many styles of English prose which are suitable for translation by machine typically favor the use of nominal rather than verbal syntagms. But such constructions when translated literally are often considered unnatural. The general problem is described in detail, with examples. The more specific problem of recognizing nominalizations and analyzing their structure is considered. How and where to achieve the required syntactic 'transformation ' is discussed, and exemplified.

references), which introduces the basic concepts of machine translation and offers a concise and clear exposition of the problems and issues faced by MT. It was meant for a Japanese audience (this translation appears three years after the original book did), and in some respects it can be seen as self-advertising for the Japanese industry; at the same time, it is also a good description of the specific problems encountered in translating between Japanese and English, and it gives a refreshing view of the history of the field, which has usually been recounted from the Western side. As each example contains the original Japanese text, its transliteration, and a word-for-word gloss as well as the English translation, a reader with no knowledge of Japanese can follow quite easily the explanations that were meant for a Japanese reader. However, I have a few reservations. The translation is sometimes awkward, especially in the second, more technical, part of the book, and it suffers from n