@inbook {13825, title = {Machine Translation: Interlingual Methods}, booktitle = {Encyclopedia of Language \& Linguistics (Second Edition)Encyclopedia of Language \& Linguistics (Second Edition)}, year = {2006}, month = {2006///}, pages = {383 - 394}, publisher = {Elsevier}, organization = {Elsevier}, address = {Oxford}, abstract = {An interlingua is a notation for representing the content of a text that abstracts away from the characteristics of the language itself and focuses on the meaning (semantics) alone. Interlinguas are typically used as pivot representations in machine translation, allowing the contents of a source text to be generated in many different target languages. Because of the complexities involved, few interlinguas are more than demonstration prototypes, and only one has been used in a commercial MT system. In this article, we define the components of an interlingua and the principal issues faced by designers and builders of interlinguas and interlingua MT systems, illustrating with examples from operational systems and research prototypes. We discuss current efforts to annotate texts with interlingua-based information.}, keywords = {approximate interlingua, compositionality, conceptual knowledge, cross-language divergences, interlingua, interlingual speech translation, language-independent representation, lexical-conceptual structure, Machine translation, ontology, predicate-argument structure, semantic annotation, semantic frames, semantic zones, text-meaning representations, THEMATIC ROLES}, isbn = {978-0-08-044854-1}, url = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B0080448542009391}, author = {Dorr, Bonnie J and Hovy,E. and Levin,L.}, editor = {Editor-in-Chief:~~ Keith Brown} }