Comparative Analysis of Languages for Machine Processing. Interim Report.

This report gives the results obtained in the semantic and syntactic analysis of the Japanese particles "de,""ni,""e," and "wo" in comparison to their equivalents in English, German, and Spanish. The study is based on the so-called "Correlational Analysis" as proposed by Ernst von Glaserfeld. The combinations of distinctive semantic features of the "correlata" with the relations are summarized in tables. A detailed and diagramed description is given of two examples showing the transition from any of the four languages to any of the others in the translation process concerning the particles involved. The model is based on the logical functions of conjunction, dejunction, and disjunction as suggested by A. Hoppe. The Japanese particles--particularly "de,""ni," and "wo"--have a wide semantic range. This will be a problem in machine translation but could be approached through coding the distinctive correlational features of the words in the dictionary and through adequate programming for the machine translation process. On the other hand, this lack of linguistic explicitness forces the speaker and hearer of Japanese to extract considerably more information from the context, both linguistic and social, than the speakers of the other three languages to achieve comprehension in the communication process. (Authors/DO)