Representation and translation

In this paper we discuss the failure of machine translation Systems that attempt to translate without understanding the input text. We present examples o n which such Systems would be likely tofail, and use these examples t o argue foran anderstanding-based translation System. Using translation examples, we argue for a representational theory, MOPs, which we present äs pari of an understanding theory for use in a translation System. We then describe a system that is currently being implemented, called MOPTRANS, which uses MOPs.