--- title: "Anaphora Resolution in Machine Translation — Mitkov 1995" description: "The paper argues that pronoun resolution, long sidelined in MT because most systems work sentence by sentence, is often essential for correct output." authors: ["Ruslan Mitkov", "Sung-Kwon Choi", "Randall Sharp"] year: 1995 venue: "Proceedings of the Sixth Conference on Theoretical and Methodological Issues in Machine Translation of Natural Languages" source: "https://aclanthology.org/1995.tmi-1.6/" licence: "CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 (ACL Anthology, before 2016)" licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/" summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License" canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/papers/mitkov-1995-anaphora-resolution-machine-translation/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/papers/mitkov-1995-anaphora-resolution-machine-translation/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/) / [papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/papers/) / [1995](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/papers/1995/) / Anaphora Resolution in Machine Translation # Anaphora Resolution in Machine Translation **Authors:** [Ruslan Mitkov](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/authors/ruslan-mitkov/), Sung-Kwon Choi, Randall Sharp · **Year:** 1995 · **Venue:** Proceedings of the Sixth Conference on Theoretical and Methodological Issues in Machine Translation of Natural Languages · **Licence:** [CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 (ACL Anthology, before 2016)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/) **Links:** [Publisher's page](https://aclanthology.org/1995.tmi-1.6/) · [PDF](https://aclanthology.org/1995.tmi-1.6.pdf) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W7099454511) **Citations:** 0 citations (openalex-snapshot · 2026-10-14) · [13](#cited-by) in our library, of the 140673 papers whose bibliographies we read ## Summary The paper argues that pronoun resolution, long sidelined in MT because most systems work sentence by sentence, is often essential for correct output. Target languages may mark pronoun gender (German), choose different pronouns for human and non-human referents (Korean they), or prefer to drop the pronoun or replace it with a noun. In each case the system must know the antecedent. The authors also reject leaving anaphoric ambiguity unresolved. That approach gives no computational gain and becomes fragile as lexicons grow or new languages are added. After reviewing earlier MT-oriented work, they describe an anaphora resolution model added to CAT2, a unification-based, Prolog-implemented transfer system. Anaphoric features of verb arguments are collected and passed up to the sentence node. This lets a pronoun in one sentence be matched against candidates in the previous sentence. Strict morphological and semantic agreement constraints are applied first, and preferential rules based on semantic roles then narrow any remaining ambiguity. The paper reports no quantitative evaluation. It shows only English–German examples that the model handles correctly. The main contribution is a concrete integration of discourse-level reasoning into a working MT formalism. ## Key points - The motivating examples include the classic monkey/banana sentences, where German requires Affe, Banane, or es. In Korean, they must be resolved between programmers and programs to select a human or non-human form. - CAT2 was developed at IAI Saarbrücken as an offshoot of Eurotra and has been in development since 1987. It uses tree-to-tree transduction through an interface structure and keeps analysis and generation strictly monolingual. - The formalism has four rule types: b-rules and f-rules build trees and check their features, while t-rules and tf-rules handle transduction. It is implemented in SICStus Prolog. - Intersentential resolution works through a cand feature that percolates to the S node, with backtracking over candidate bindings. The demonstrated cases are council/commission/law sentences translated into German. - Planned extensions include a Bayesian center-tracking engine (Mitkov 94b), plus heuristic and domain modules and a referential expression filter. *Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.* Fields: [Linguistics & languages](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/shelves/linguistics/) · [Machine translation](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/shelves/machine-translation/) Topics: [Coreference resolution](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/topics/coreference-resolution/) · [Machine translation](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/topics/machine-translation/) ## Cited by Cited by 13 papers of our library cite it (of the 140673 whose bibliographies we read); 4 of them have a page here, 9 not yet. - [Tackling Zero Pronoun Resolution and Non-Zero Coreference Resolution Jointly](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/papers/chen-2021-tackling-zero-pronoun-resolution-non/) - [An Integrated Model for Anaphora Resolution](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/papers/mitkov-1994-integrated-model-anaphora-resolution/) - [Aiding Pronoun Translation with Co-Reference Resolution](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/papers/nagard-2010-aiding-pronoun-translation-co-reference/) - [PCR4ALL: A Comprehensive Evaluation Benchmark for Pronoun Coreference Resolution in English](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/papers/zhao-2022-pcr4all-comprehensive-evaluation-benchmark-pronoun/) ## Cite The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. ```bibtex @inproceedings{mitkov1995anaphora, title = {{Anaphora Resolution in Machine Translation}}, author = {Mitkov, Ruslan and Choi, Sung-Kwon and Sharp, Randall}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Sixth Conference on Theoretical and Methodological Issues in Machine Translation of Natural Languages}, year = {1995}, url = {https://aclanthology.org/1995.tmi-1.6/} } ``` - [← previous A Model-Theoretic Coreference Scoring Scheme](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/papers/vilain-1995-model-theoretic-coreference-scoring-scheme/) - [next → Centering: A Framework for Modeling the Local Coherence of Discourse](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/papers/cl-1995-grosz-centering-framework-modeling-local-coherence/) - [↑ back to papers of 1995](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/papers/1995/) ## References 19 references, 5 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet. 1. J. Carbonell, R. Brown. Anaphora resolution: a multi-strategy approach. Proceedings of COLING'88, Budapest, 1988 [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=J%2E+Carbonell%2C+R%2E+Brown%2E+Anaphora+resolution%3A+a+multi%2Dstrategy+approach%2E+Proceedings+of+COLING%2788%2C+Budapest%2C+1988) [our card](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/papers/carbonell-1988-anaphora-resolution-multi-strategy-approach/) 2. G. Hirst. Anaphora in natural language understanding. Berlin Springer Verlag, 1981 [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=G%2E+Hirst%2E+Anaphora+in+natural+language+understanding%2E+Berlin+Springer+Verlag%2C+1981) 3. J. Hobbs. Resolving pronoun references. Lingua, Vol. 44, 1978 [↗](https://doi.org/10.1016/0024-3841(78)90006-2) [our card](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/papers/hobbs-1978-resolving-pronoun-references/) 4. J. Hutchins, H. Somers. An Introduction to Machine Translation, Academic Press, 1992 [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=J%2E+Hutchins%2C+H%2E+Somers%2E+An+Introduction+to+Machine+Translation%2C+Academic+Press%2C+1992) 5. P. Isabelle, L. Bourbeau. TAUM-AVIATION: Its technical features and some experimental results, Computational Linguistics 11, 1985 [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=P%2E+Isabelle%2C+L%2E+Bourbeau%2E+TAUM%2DAVIATION%3A+Its+technical+features+and+some+experimental+results%2C+Computational+Linguistics+11%2C+1985) 6. R. Ingria, D. Stallard. A computational mechanism for pronominal reference. Proceedings of the 27th Annual Meeting of the ACL, Vancouver, Canada, 1989 [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=R%2E+Ingria%2C+D%2E+Stallard%2E+A+computational+mechanism+for+pronominal+reference%2E+Proceedings+of+the+27th+Annual+Meeting+of+the+ACL%2C+Vancouver%2C+Canada%2C+1989) 7. R. Mitkov. An integrated model for anaphora resolution. Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Computational Linguistics COLING'94, Kyoto, Japan, 1994 [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=R%2E+Mitkov%2E+An+integrated+model+for+anaphora+resolution%2E+Proceedings+of+the+15th+International+Conference+on+Computational+Linguistics+COLING%2794%2C+Kyoto%2C+Japan%2C+1994) [our card](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/papers/mitkov-1994-integrated-model-anaphora-resolution/) 8. R. Mitkov. A new approach for tracking center. Proceedings of the International Conference “New Methods in Language Processing”, UMIST, Manchester, UK, 1994 [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=R%2E+Mitkov%2E+A+new+approach+for+tracking+center%2E+Proceedings+of+the+International+Conference+%E2%80%9CNew+Methods+in+Language+Processing%E2%80%9D%2C+UMIST%2C+Manchester%2C+UK%2C+1994) 9. R. Mitkov, H.K. Kim, H.K. Lee, K.S. Choi. The lexical transfer of pronominal anaphors in Machine Translation: the English-to-Korean case. 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Ramm (ed): Studies in MT and NLP, Volume 6, EU Office, Luxembourg, 1994 [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=S%2E+Preu%C3%9F%2C+B%2E+Schmitz%2C+C%2E+Hauenschild%2C+C%2E+Umbach%2E+Anaphora+Resolution+in+Machine+Translation%2E+In+W%2E+Ramm+%28ed%29%3A+Studies+in+MT+and+NLP%2C+Volume+6%2C+EU+Office%2C+Luxembourg%2C+1994) [our card](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/papers/mitkov-1995-anaphora-resolution-machine-translation/) 12. E. Rich, S. LuperFoy. An architecture for anaphora resolution. Proceedings of the Second Conference on Applied Natural Language Processing, Austin, USA, 1988 [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=E%2E+Rich%2C+S%2E+LuperFoy%2E+An+architecture+for+anaphora+resolution%2E+Proceedings+of+the+Second+Conference+on+Applied+Natural+Language+Processing%2C+Austin%2C+USA%2C+1988) [our card](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/papers/rich-1988-architecture-anaphora-resolution/) 13. H. Saggion, Ar. Carvalho. Anaphora resolution in a machine translation system. 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