> > On 03/30/2011 01:17 PM, Beau R Beck wrote: > > Thank you for your helpful and timely responses, and for the > > links. I have only just glanced at them, but I look forward to looking > > over them more thoroughly in the very near future. A Latin to English > > translator would be more useful; however, I thought it would be more > > difficult. That is why i picked English to Latin. I would be more than > > willing to work on Latin to English. > > I want to work on this particular language because I feel that all > > the translators I've used have had limitations in some way, mostly to do > > with translating the different declensions and cases correctly. For > > instance, with the Google translator, when i put "currit in cauponam" it > > output "the inn is running in the." This doesn't make sense, and I > > would have translated it "he/she/it is running into the in." Another > > example is "currit in caupon?." it output "is running in the in." This > > is almost correct, the translator just didn't get the subject from the > > verb. > > As someone with a lot of experience in Latin, getting the subject > right is one of the most difficult things even for humans. The > subject is often omitted, in which case it can often be difficult > even to determine which antecedent is to serve. Then there are those > neuter nouns, almost all of which are identical in the nominative > and accusative, so it can be difficult to tell whether the noun is > the subject or direct object of the verb. >
I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply that I had all the answers or that it would be an easy problem to solve. On the contrary, I think it would be very difficult. Latin itself is a difficult language to grasp, and I, someone with only a year of latin experience, sometimes find myself translating a sentence two or three different ways to get it to sound right. > > > One more example is that most translators also incorrectly > > translate the ablative case when it's all alone as the instrument of > > means (eg. bacul? would mean to do something with a stick). These are > > just a few examples of the limitations they have. > > There are many different ablative constructions, of which ablative > of means is only one. You also have time when, comparison, etc. which > require either context or semantic knowledge to disambiguate. Some > verbs even take their direct objects in the ablative. Not to mention > that all nouns are the same in the dative and ablative plural, and most > of them are the same in the singular, so bacul? above could also be a > dative singular. > > --Mark > I didn't mean those few examples were all inclusive. I know there are many ways the ablative case is used, some of which I'm sure I haven't learned yet. The transfer rules will be very difficult. I just thought that this would be a good, fun and useful project for me to work on over the summer as it would marry two things I love: writing code and Latin. If you think it's way over my head, then perhaps I can find some other way in which to help for Apertium. Thank you for your time and responses. Sincerely, Beau Beck
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