lrec 2000 athens; gerhard budin and alan melby accessibility of multilingual terminological...

LREC 2000 Athens; Gerhard Budin and Alan Melby

Accessibility of Multilingual Terminological Resources

Current Problems and Prospects for the Future

Gerhard BudinUniversity of Vienna

<[email protected]>

Alan MelbyBrigham Young University

<[email protected]>


Diversity Problems of MTRs

• Incompatible ontologies

• Diverse categorizations of terminological information

• Varieties of data models

• Multitude of formats and ‚standards‘

-> lack of interoperability, portability

across applications, domains, platforms, etc.

Terminology Interchange

• Pre-requisite for – knowledge sharing– co-operative work flows– marketing, distribution– maintenance– interoperability (data management across MT,

TM, CL, TA, IM, KM, etc.)

• R&D since 1980s (EU, ISO, TEI)


Barriers to terminological knowledge sharing

• Legal barriers (copyright, IPR)

• economic barriers (pricing, billing)

• information barriers (lack of information)

• technical barriers (lack of cross-platform/-system/-format (im-/ex-)portability, etc.)

• methodological barriers (data modelling, diversity in work principles, methods)

Multitude of Formats

• Document formats

• Database formats

• Mark-up formats

• for lexical/terminological data

MATER, TEI-lex/term, NTRF, OLIF, MARTIF, TBX, IIF, TRANSTERM, GENETER, EURAMIS etc.)

SALT-XLT

• Standards-based Access to Multilingual Lexicons and Terminologies - a broad-based initiative

• aiming at CONVERGENCE, INTEROPERABILITY

• International Consortium of industry partners, universities, NGOs/IOs/IGOs, professional associations

– European group: shared-cost RTD project called SALT in the 5th Framework Programme (IST-HLT), started in January 2000 (funding for 2 years)

– US group (funding expected)

Features of the SALT Initiative• User-oriented (industry, administration, multiple

user-groups)• Oriented towards integrating applications• Ontology mapping component• Web-based• free-ware approach• XML, XLST, Java• Standards-based (integrating HLT standards,

concurrent development with ISO/TC 37)


XLT• XML-based Lexical/Terminological framework

format• A FAMILY of (interoperable) formats

– includes or is based on or overlaps with• TEI

• MARTIF

• MSC

• OLIF

• Geneter

• TBX, etc.

XLT

Lex/term Resources,Diverse Formats Industry Sectors

Language

Server / Toolkit

InformationTechnologyDevelopers

ConsultingServices

Broader SocialImpact

Enhanced Access to Multilingual Resources

for Language Technology

TRANSTERM

OLIFMARTIF

INTERVALGENETER

PROPRIETARYFORMATS

EXPORTTOOLS

IMPORTTOOLS

VIEWERS

MERGE/QUERYFUNCTIONS

FACILITATION

ACCESS

TAGGING

CONVERSION

INFO BROKERAGE

MARKUP

ONTOLOGIES

AUTHORINGMT

TM

IM

TMS

TRANSLATION

L10NI18N

INTEGRATION ACCESS

Workflow in SALT

Analysis of existing formats (sample data sets, data elements/structures, ontologies)

PM Mapping Clustering

QM

Utilities, tools, website

external assessment, evaluation

dissemination, implementation


Features of XLT

• XML-based (since this is the dominant data exchange transport mechanism today)

• standards-based• corresponding relational data model for integrated

database to facilitate loading• flexible in order to support maintenance of the

format as needs evolve• language industry support


Levels of Modellingin the SALT Initiative

• Level 1: meta-model consisting of a

– structural meta-model (ORM, UML)and a

– and a content meta-model:• metadata registry based on ISO 12620, following the

methods of ISO 11179

• co-operation with the SCHEMAS project (registry of XML schemas), JTC 1/SC 32, etc.)



• Level 2: conceptual data model (user-group needs analysis level)

– implementation modality (e.g. XML intermediate format or relational database) is selected for user group

– a core structure compatible with the meta-model but going into more detail is defined for each modality

– particular set of data categories and constraints on them is selected according to user needs

• e.g. Reltef (E-R diagram), XLT (DTD, XML schema, data-category specifications)



• Level 3: Specific data model / format– core structure, a data category specification, and a

representation style are combined to define a member of the SALT family

– each member is fully interoperable with other members that use the same data category specification

• e.g. concrete relational database implementations, specific XLT implementations, subsets for industrial user groups such as TBX


Cooperation and ConcertationThe SALT consortium (U Vienna, U AS Cologne, U Surrey,

LORIA Nancy, Termisti Brussels, EA Bozen/Bolzano, BYU Provo) cooperates with

• other HLT or IST projects (TQPro, Schemas, etc.)

• other EU-projects (MLIS) (TDCNet, GEMA, DINT, etc.)

• ELRA, EAFT

• EU Commission, UN-Jiamcatt group

• TEI, ISO, JTC 1, W3C

• LISA (OSCAR) including companies other than IT from other industries (telecom, automotive eng.)

• FIT, etc.


Conclusions

• The SALT project contributes to a convergence process that is badly needed in the area of multilingual lex/term resources

• technical/methodological convergence resulting in interoperability and accessibility of MTRs supports language industry markets

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