PROPOSAL FOR A COUNCIL DECISION ADOPTING A SPECIFIC PROGRAMME CONCERNING THE PREPARATION OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN OPERATIONAL EUROTRA SYSTEM
Date: 1989-12-05
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: machine translation, research and development, research programme, translation

I 

COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES 

COM(89) 603 final - SYN 228 

Brussels, 5 December 1989 

Proposal  for a 

COUNCIL DECISION 

adopting a specific  programme  concerning  the preparation of 

the development  of an operational  EUROTRA  system 

(presented by the Commission) 

uip 

- "ill 

C&nt<  > 

Communication fro» the Commission to Counoil 

Subject : Proposal  for  a  Counoil  Deoision  adopting  a  specific 
programme concerning  the preparation  of  the development 
of an operational EUROTRA system. 

•JT4 •**  v 

- 2 -

I.  BACKGROUND 

1.  The Framework Programme  1987-1991C1) foresees under action line 

8.4. with regard to linguistic problems the following actions : 

completion by 1990 of a first multilingual prototype machine 
translation system  (for nine official Community  languages) 
(EUROTRA) 

For  this  point  the  Commission  has  submitted  to  Council a 
proposal  on  1 June  1988^2) and  amended  it  on  7  February 
1989(3) incorporating  a  number  of  recommendations  of  the 
European Parliament, and Council has adopted its Decision on 
20 June 1989(4) 

support  to  the  industrial  development  of  a  machine 
translation system, development of methods and tools for the 
reusability 
in  computerized 
applications  and  creation  of  standards  for  lexical  and 
terminological data. 

resources 

lexical 

of 

These points are the subject of the present proposal. 

2.  Action  line  8.4.  of  the  Framework  Programme  foresees  a  tota" 
expenditure  of  55 million ECU.  This  amount  is  subdivided  amone 
the various specific programmes as follows : 

V A L U B C5) 
Phase 3 of EUROTRA 
present speoifio programme proposal 

38 million ECU 
7 million ECU 
10 million ECU 

TOTAL 

55 million ECU 

The  present  proposal  takes  into account  these  factors  and  the 
duration  of  the  current  EUROTRA  programme  (ending  on  30 June 
1990). 

(1)  OJ n» L 302 Of 24.10.1987, p. 1 
(2)  COM (88) 270 final 
(3)  COM (89) 20 final/2 - SYK 137 
(4)  OJ n* L 200 Of 13.7.1989, p. 15 
(5)  OJ n# L 200 Of 13.7.1989, p. 23 

- 3 -

II.  STARTING CONDITIONS OF THE  PROGRAMME 

3. 

The  proposal  builds  on  the  achievements  of  the  current  EUROTRA 
programme. 

The  objective  of  the  programme  is  the  creation  of  a  machine 
translation  system  of  advanced  design  (EUROTRA)  capable  of 
dealing with all official languages of the Community. 

On  completion  of  the  programme  an  operational  system  prototype 
should be available in a limited  field and for limited  categories 
of  text,  which  would  serve  as  a  basis  for  development  of  a 
practical system in the period  following  the current  programme. 

The  practical  results  likely  to  be  obtained  by  the  end  of  the 
third phase include among  others : 

for  each  of  the  nine  languages  analysis  and  synthesis 
modules  with  a  broad  coverage  of  the  linguistic  phenomena 
which  occur  in  the  text  types  chosen  (handbooks,  manuals, 
scientific articles in the field of telecommunications); 

for  each  of  the  languages  the  general  vocabulary  which  is 
used in these texts  (approx. 8.000 entries); 

the  technical  terminology  of  a  number  of  subfields  of 
telecomunications  (approx. 12.000 entries); 

transfer  modules  with  this  coverage  for  a  representative 
number  of language pairs  (approx. 50); 

a  number  of linguistio research results achieved  during the 
final year  of  the programme  which should  be  incorporated  in 
the future Implementations. 

It  is  planned  to  carry  out  an  intermediate  evaluation  of  the 
progress of the EUROTRA  programme during the second half of 1989. 
As  far as possible  the same experts as those who  carried  out the 
programme  assessment  in  1987  will  be  invited  to  conduct  this 
evaluation. The evaluation  report  should become  available  before 
the end of 1989. 

4 -

Tn  the Council Decisions  of  25 July  1988(6) on  the  transition of 
EUROTRA  to  the  third  phase  and  of  20  June  1989(?)  on  the 
completion  of  the  programme,  these  initial  objectives  have  been 
maintained.  In  addition,  following  the  recommendations  of  tr.e 
panel  of  independent  experts  who  assessed  the  programme  in 198;' 
and  of  the  Energy,  Research  and  Technology  Committee  of  the 
European  Parliament  a  number  of  additional  actions  have  bee^ 
included  in the programme  of work of the third phase of  EUROTRA. 

p 

These additional actions aim in particular at the preparation  fc 
system,  thr. 
the  implementation 
involvement  of  enterprises,  setting  up  cooperation  schemes 
between  research  institutions  and  enterprises  and  training  of 
researchers and engineers. 

of  a  practical  EUROTRA 

6. 

In  the  course  of  1989  the  Commission  has  launched  studies 
covering  the following points : 

outline  definition  of  a  practical  BUROTRA  system  including 
qualitative  and  quantitative  performance,  user  and  system 
maintenance  environments,  sub-,  by-  and  spin-off  produr-
and  systems,  development  strategies,  actors,  time  scale... 
costs  etc.  Among  other  things  this  study  should  provide 
enterprises  with elements which will allow  them  to make use 
of the research results of the EUROTRA  programme  for product 
development; 

system analysis of the general architecture  of EUROTRA. This 
study  aims  at  the  definition  of  a  basis  for  further 
technological  development  both  in  view  of  machine 
translation and other applications; 

design studies to define the system development,  testing and 
research  environment.  They  should  lead  to  a  number  of 
recommendations  and  specifications  covering  the  various 
system  components  needed  for  the development  of  large scalo 
systems,  especially  in view  of  the  economic  feasibility  of 
such development ; 

a  project  definition  study  for  the  re-usability  of  lexical 
resources in computerized  applications. 

In  addition  the  Commission  supports,  and  participates  actively 
in,  an  international  project,  called  "Text  Encoding  Initiative" 
which  was  launched  by  professional  associations  and  aims  at the 
definition  of  a  proposal  for  international  standards  concerning 
textual and lexical data. 

(6) OJ Ne. L £22 Of  12.08.1988, p.l 
(7)  OJ Hc. L 200 Of 13.07.1989, p. 15 

-  5 -

III. OBJECTIVES AND CONTENT OP THE  PROGRAMME 

7. 

Considering  the  time-scales  and  the levels  of  financing  foreseen 
for  the  proposed  programme,  the  objectives  are  necessarily 
limited. 

The programme  is foreseen  to last  for a period  of 2 years  from 1 
July  1990  to  30 June  1992  with  an  average  Community  funding  of 
5 million ECU per annum. 

8. 

Following  the  actions  foreseen  in  the  Framework  Programme • the 
objectives  of  this  proposal  are  articulated  under  three  main 
headings : 

(i)  Preparation  for  the  development  of  an  operational  EUROTRA 

system. 

The  main  objective  of  the  actions  under  this  heading  is to 
create,  starting  from  the EUROTRA  prototype  and building  on 
the  results  of  a  number  of  ESPRIT  projects,  appropriate 
conditions  for  its  further  development.  This  includes 
further research aiming at the improvement  of the linguistic 
performance of the system. The main action lines  include : 

(a) Implementation  of  a  stable  and  efficient  system 
development  and testing environment: it should include : 

-  a streamlined  rule formalism with special emphasis on 
declarativity, 

reversibility, 

expressive 
modularity and control mechanisms; 

power, 

-  an  efficient  rule  interpreter  capable  of  handling 
large  dictionaries,  grammars  and  texts  at  an 
acceptable speed; 

-  a data base  system  for  the storage and  management  of 

large dictionaries, grammars and text corpora; 

-  a  user  environment  for  the  creation  and  maintenance 

of large dictionaries and grammars; 

-  a  testing  environment  with  special  emphasis  on 

interactive testing . 

(b) Language  speciflo  linguistic  research  and  development 
work aiming at the extension of the prototype system and 
at  the  improvement  of  its  linguistic  performance.  This 
action line should include : 

- 6 -

Review of the existing linguistio  implementations 

The  existing  linguistio  implementations  will have  to be 
adapted  to  the  revised  framework  and  environment,  so 
that  they  can  be  used  as  a  stable  basis  for  further 
extensions  foreseen  within  the  present  programme  and 
beyond. 

Extension of the linguistio coverage 

The grammatical  coverage  is to be gradually  extended so 
as  to  deal  with  phenomena  occurring  in  new  text  types. 
Special  attention  should  be given  to  the  optimal  use of 
the  modularity  of  the  system  architecture  to  capture 
text type and subject  field specific  phenomena. 

Experimentation with relayed  transfer 

The  basic  principle  consists  in  using  one  interface 
structure  as  a  pivot  through  which  transfer  from  and 
into  all  other  languages  transits.  The  economio  stake 
for  a  practical  multilingual  system  (awaiting  an 
interlingual  solution) is the reduction of the geometric 
progression  of  individual  language  pairs  (72  for  nine 
languages)  to  exactly  one  transfer  from  and  into  each 
language.  The  success  of  this  experimentation  would 
greatly  enhance  the  economic  feasibility  of  a  truly 
multilingual  system  with  equal  coverage  of  all 
directions  of translation. 

Incorporation and testing of research results 

EUROTRA  is  designed  as  an  evolutionary  system  able  to 
inoorporate  new  researoh  results.  When  such  results 
become  available,  they  must  be  integrated  in  the 
relevant  modules  and  extensively  tested  with  regard  to 
their  effectiveness  for  the  solution  of  the  problems 
which  they  are  intended  to  solve,  mostly  in  three 
areas : 

-  the resolution of ambiguities; 
-  the reduotion of complex transfer; 
-  the extension of the interlinguality of the interface 

structure. 

Ultimately,  they  aim  at  the  improvement  of  the  quality 
of translation. 

(o) Linguistio  research  QiSkSlQ  and  applied)—ol—general 

interest 
To  ensure  the  evolution  of EUROTRA,  a continuing  effort 
of linguistio research is necessary. 

- 7 -

An  initial  sot  of  priority  areas  is  expected  to  be 
defined  as  an  outcome  of  the  system  review  undertaken 
during the third phase and the evaluation at the end of 
the EUROTRA programme. 

Strategically  the  systematic  and  exhaustive  use  of 
general linguistio knowledge is to be given priority. It 
is, however, well-known that certain classes of problems 
cannot  be  solved  on  the  basis  of  linguistic  knowledge 
alone, and  that  "extra-linguistic"  knowledge  is needed 
for  their  solution  (common  sense  world  knowledge, 
domain-specific 
discourse-specific 
knowledge). 

knowledge, 

Since  considerable  research  efforts  are  being  made 
outside  the present programme in relation  to knowledge 
bases, expert systems, inferencing, advanced information 
systems etc., the main thrust will be in the use of the 
research  results  obtained  in  such  projects  and  in 
experimentation in cooperation with such projects. 

(d) Research in system architectures 

with, 

interface 

EUROTRA  is  designed  as  an  intelligent  knowledge based 
system  (IKBS) which at present  incorporates  linguistic 
specialist  knowledge  and  eventually  will  incorporate, 
extra-linguistlo  knowledge. 
or 
Considerable effort is being put elsewhere in knowledge 
representation/engineering,  expert systems and advanced 
hardware 
associative, 
connectionist  machines).  In  order  to give  EUROTRA and 
language  technology  in  general  a  sufficient  potential 
for  innovation,  a  permanent  effort  is  necessary  to 
explore  the  possibilities  offered  by  the  new 
developments and eventually to experiment their use for 
natural languages. 

arohiteotures 

(parallel, 

(ii) Development  of  methods  and  tools  for  the  reusability  of 

lexical resources in computarlzed applications. 

The objectives of this action line are twofold: 

Oe) Use of existing lexical and terminological resources for 

building EUROTRA dictionaries 

of 

availability 

The 
high-quality 
dictionaries and terminological resources is crucial for 
a  practical  MT  system  and  any  other  application 
involving  natural  language.  This  action  line  is  to 
provide methods and tools for this purpose. The project 
definition  study  under  way  will  provide  the necessary 
details. 

large-scale 

- 8 -

(f) Re-usabillty of lexical and grammatical  resources 

The  purpose  of  this  aotion  line  is  to  demonstrate  that 
modules developed  for EUROTRA  can actually  be used  in a 
variety  of  applications  with  some  natural  language 
component.  It  Involves  pilot  and  demonstrator  projects 
in  cooperation  with  those  responsible  for  relevant 
application projects. 

(iii)  Creation of standards for lexical and terminological data: 

In  every  field  of  technology  the  availability  of 
international  standards  is  a  necessity.  For  linguistic 
technologies  the Commission  considers the creation of sue:, 
standards  as  a  long-term  objective.  Within  the  present 
programme  the  only  realistio actions  to be envisaged must 
be of a preparatory nature including prenormative research 
and stimulatory  actions, such as : 

(g)  Active  participation  in  initiatives  aiming  at  the 
(dictionaries, 

standards 

creation 
terminologies, corpora). 

such 

of 

(h)  Stimulation  of  activities  aiming  at  provide 
adequate  terminological  ooverage  of  the  offic 
languages  in key areas of soienoe and technology. 

9. 

The results expected  from  this programme are : 

a  set  of stable, efficient  and user-friendly  software  tools 
and a tested methodology  for large-scale system development; 

a  set  of  tools  and  methods  for  building  large-scale 
dictionaries  by  the  extensive  use  of  existing  lexical 
resources; 

a  set  of  tools  and  methods  for  the  incorporation  of 
specialized  terminological collections; 

for all nine Community  languages well-tested  implementations 
of  analysis  and  synthesis  modules  with  broad  grammatical 
coverage  and  a  representative  lexioal  coverage  (no  large-
scale  lexicographio  work  is  foreseen  in  this  programme, 
pending  the  outcome  of  the  work  on  the  reusability  of 
lexical and terminological  resouroes); 

should  the  experimentation  with  relayed  transfer  be 
successful,  the  translation  from  eaoh  language  into  all 
other  languages,  otherwise  the  translation  between  a 
representative number  of language pairs; 

- 9 -

experience  of  cooperation  models  aiming  at  the developrent 
of  a  practical  multilingual  translation  system,  and  cf  a 
number of intermediate sub-, by- and spin-off products; 

IV.  ORGANIZATION  AND ACTORS 

10.  EUROTRA  involves  the  active  participation  of  all  twelve  Merber 
states.  This  participation  is  implemented  through  contracts  of 
association with the Member  States which determine also the ratio 
of Community  and national contributions  to the programme. 

11.  In  general  the  responsibility  of  each  national  research  teaa is 
the  analysis  and  synthesis  of  its  own  national  language  and  the 
transfer  from  the other languages into its own language. The work 
on  the  Dutch  language  is  done  jointly  by  the  Netherlands  and 
Belgium and on the French language by France and Belgium. Ireland 
is  responsible  for  the coordination  of  the terminological  wcrk, 
while  Luxembourg  provides  general  infrastructural  support  for 
documentation  and  testing  and  distribution  of  the  software  and 
Belgium  is also  responsible  for eleotronio  lexicographic  work of 
general interest. 

12.  All  national  teams  participate  aotively  in  basic  and  applied 
lingulstio research of general interest. This work is coordinated 
by  the  project  team  in  the  Commission  with  the  support  of  a 
number  of  researchers  from  the  national  teams  whose  work  is 
financed  100 % from Community funds. 

13.  The  design  of  the  general  system  framework  and  of  the  rule 
formalism  and  the  initial  prototype  implementation  of  the 
software were  carried  out  under  a  similar  schema  as  the  general 
lingulstio  research.  In  the  course  of  the  third  phase,  software 
development  and  maintenance  have  progressively  concentrated  in 
the  Commission  project  team  with  the assistance  of  experts  from 
the European software industry. This work is also  fully financed 
from Community  funds. 

-  10 -

14.  In the course of the third phase,  the virtually closed  schema of 
the  contracts  of  association  has  been  opened  to  additional 
research institutes and enterprises, who have been entrusted with 
a number  of system analysis, feasibility and design studies. 

15.  In  the  light  of  the  experience  gained  with  the  organizational 
structure  of  EUROTRA,  the  following  schema  is  proposed  for  this 
programme : 

(a)  The design and  specifications  of  the system  development  and 
testing  environment  are  expected  to be  ready  for  the  start 
of  this  programme.  It  is  estimated  that  some  20 %  of  t: 
overall  budget  is  necessary  for  its  implementation,  whi 
should be fully financed  from Community  funds. 

(b)  The  language-specific  R#D  work  described  under  point  8 
letter  b  should  continue  and  be  co-finanoed  by  the 
Community  and  the  Member  States  based  on  the  same 
arrangements as the current contracts of association.  It is 
proposed  that  about  40 %  of  the  Community  funds  should  be 
destined  for this purpose. 

(c)  The  actions  of  a  more  exploratory  nature,  especially  those 
desoribed  under  point  8,  letters  o,  d,  e  and  f  should 
carried  out  as  cooperative  ventures  between  industi. 
research  Institutes  and  existing  EUROTRA  teams  and  be  co-
financed  on  a  50-50  basis  by  the  Community  and  the 
participants.  The  projeots  will  be  seleoted  through  calls 
for  proposals/tenders. 30 %  of  the overall budget  should be 
used for this purpose. 

(d)  The  Commission  is  aware  of  the  soaroity  of  expertise  and 
talent in the field of maohine translation and  computational 
linguistics. It is therefore proposed  to reserve  10 % of the 
Community  budget  to  award  grants  to  graduate  students  to 
enable them to participate  in the work of the EUROTRA  teams 
or of the other participants in the programme. 

(e)  The  Commission  will  maintain  the  programme  management  and 
coordination  function.  It  is  estimated  that  8  additional 
temporary  staff are required for the implementation  of this 
specifio programme. 

- 11 -

(f)  The  Commission  proposes  that  in  the  execution  of  this 
Programme  it  should  be assisted  by an Advisory Committee, 
which should among others, take over the role of the present 
CGC-12. 

V.  7INANCTAL ESTIMATIONS 

16.  The  overall  budget  of  10 million ECU  should  be  subdivided  as 

follows (in 1,000 ECU) : 

EC 
Contributions 

National 
Contributions 

TOTAL 

. SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT AND 

TESTING ENVIRONMENT 

2.000 

. NATIONAL RESEARCH TEAMS 

- Community contribution 
- National contribution 

4.000 

4.000 

. COOPERATIVE PROJECTS 

- EC contribution 
- participants 

3.000 

3.000 

2.000 

8.000 

6.000 

. TRAINING 

1.000 

1.000 

. TOTAL 

10.000 

7.000 

17.000 

- 12 -

17.  The Commission requests the Council to adopt the proposal 

for a decision concerning a speoifio programme for 
development of an operational EUROTRA system 
which is annexed to this communication. 

VII. âXuLEXEû. 

I.  Proposal for a Council Decision adopting a specifio programme 

for the preparation of the development  of an operational EUflOT^ 
system . 

II.  Opinion of CGC-12 of 26 June 1989. 

III. Financial Statement. 

- 13 - 

ANNEX I 

Proposal for a 
COUNCIL DECISION 

adopting a specific programme concerning the preparation 
of the development of an operational EUROTRA system 

TEE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES. 

Having  regard  to  the  Treaty  establishing  the  European  Economic 
Community, and in particular Article 130q, (2) thereof, 

Having regard to the proposal from the Commission^1), 

In cooperation with the European Parliament(2), 

Having 
Committee^3), 

regard  to 

the  opinion  of the Economic  and Social 

Whereas  Article  130k  of  the  Treaty  provides  that  the  Framework 
Programme  is  to  be  implemented  through  specific  programmes 
developed within each activity; 

Whereas  by  Decision  87/516/Euratom, EEC^4) the Council  adopted  a 
Framework  programme  of  Community  research  and  technological 
development  (1987 to 1991) providing inter alia for activities on 
linguistic problems (action line 8.4;, Including the preparation of 
the development of an operational machine translation system; 

Whereas  by  Decision  82/752/EEC^5),  the  Council  adopted  a 
Community  research  and  development  programme  for  a  machine 
translation system of advanced design (EUROTRA); 

Whereas  Decision  86/591/EEC(6)  amended  Decision  82/752/EEC  on 
account of the accession of Spain and Portugal; 

Whereas  by  Decision  88/445/EEC^7),  the  Council  approved  the 
transition of the EUROTRA programme to its third phase; 

Whereas by Decision 89/410/EEC(8),  the Council adopted  a specific 
programme for the completion of EUROTRA; 

Whereas  Decision  82/752/EEC  provided  that  on  oompletion  of  the 
EUROTRA  programme  an  operational  system  prototype  should  be 
available in a limited field and for limited categories of text; 

( 1) 
(2) 
(3) 
(4) 
(5) 
(6) 
(7) 
(8) 

OJ NO 
OJ NO 
OJ NO 
OJ NO L 
OJ NO L 
OJ NO L 
OJ NO L 
OJ NO L 

302, 
317, 
341, 
222, 
200 

24.10. 
13.11. 
04.12. 
12.08. 
13.07. 

1987, 
.1982, 
1986, 
1988, 
1989, 

P-
P-
P. 
P-
P-

1. 
19. 
39. 
1. 
15. 

- 14 -

Whereas Decision  82/752/EEC  included  in the programme  of work for 
the  third  phase  of  the  EUROTRA  programme  the  preparation  of  a 
proposal for the further development of the system; 

Whereas the objectives of the EUROTRA programme are expected to be 
achieved by 30 June 1990; 

Whereas the results of the programme are expected  to constitute a 
solid  basis  for  the  preparation  of  the  development  of  an 
operational  multilingual  machine  translation  system  for  the  nine 
official Community languages; 

Whereas the programme is expected to make an important contribution 
to the economic, social and cultural cohesion of the Community, and 
to  reconcile  the  benefits  of  its  linguistic  plurality  with  the 
attainment of the internal market; 

Whereas  the  programme  constitutes  the  first  step  towards  the 
development of a practical machine translation system; 

Whereas additional efforts will have to be made by the Community, 
the  Member  States  and  European  Industry  in  order  to  reach  this 
objective; 

Whereas the Scientific and Technical Research Committee (CREST) has 
been consulted; 

Whereas  the  Management  and  Coordination  Advisory  Committe 
"Linguistic Problems" (CGC-12) has delivered a favorable opinion; 

Whereas an estimate of the amount of the financial contribution of 
the Community deemed necessary for the exeoution of this programme 
should be made; 

Whereas  this amount  is included in the financial  forecast annexed 
to the interinstitutional agreement of 29 June 1988(9); 

Whereas the appropriations effectively available will be determined 
by  the  budgetary  prooedure  aooording  to  the  provisions  of  the 
aforementioned interinstitutional agreement, 

HAS ADOPTED THIS DECISION: 

Artiole 1 

A  specifio  researoh  and  technological  development  programme 
concerning  the  preparation  of  the  development  of  an  operational 
EUROTRA  system  as defined  in  the Annex  is hereby  adopted  for a 
period of two years from 1 July 1990. 

(9)  OJ NO L 185, 15.7.1988, p. 33. 

- 15 -

Article 2 

1.  The  amount  of  Community  funds  deemed  necessary  for  the 
execution  of  the  programme  adopted  by  this  Decision  is 
ECU 10 million, including expenditure on 5 temporary staff. 

2.  The  appropriations  to  be  made  available  eaoh  year  shall  be 

determined in the budget. 

Article 5 

Detailed  rules  for  the  implementation  of  the  programme  and  the 
rate of the Community's financial  participation are set out in the 
Annex. 

Article * 

The Commission shall conduct an evaluation of the results achieved 
at  the  beginning  of  1992  and  shall  transmit  a  report  on  this 
subject  to  the  Council  and  the  European  Parliament.  This  report 
shall be  established  having  regard  to  the  objectives  set  out in 
Annex  and  in  accordance  with  Article  2,  (2)  of  Decision 
87/516/Euratom, EEC. 

Article g 

1.  The Commission  shall be responsible  for the execution  of the 

programme. 

2.  The contracts  concluded by the Commission  shall  regulate the 
rights and obligations of eaoh party including the methods of 
disseminating, protecting and exploiting the research results. 

Article 6 

1.  The Commission shall be assisted by a committee of an advisory 
nature  oomposed  of  the  representatives  of  the Member  States 
and chaired by the representative of the Commission. 

2.  The  representative  of  the  Commission  shall  submit  to  the 
committee a draft  of the measures to be taken. The committee 
shall deliver  its opinion  on the draft, within a  time limit 
whioh  the ohairman may  lay down aocording  to the urgenoy of 
the matter, if necessary by taking a vote. 

3.  The  opinion  shall  be  recorded  in  the  minutes;  in  addition, 
each  Member  State  shall  have  the  right  to  ask  to  have  its 
position recorded in the minutes. 

4.  The Commission  shall  take  the utmost  account  of  the opinion 
delivered  by  the committee. It shall Inform  the committee of 
the manner in which its opinion has been taken into account. 

- 16 -

Article 7 

In accordance with Article  13On of  the Treaty,  the Commission  is 
hereby  authorised  to  negotiate  agreements  with  international 
organisations,  third  countries  participating 
in  European 
cooperation  in the field  of Scientific and Technological Research 
(COST) and European countries having conoluded framework agreements 
for scientific and technical cooperation with the Community, with a 
view to associating them wholly or partly with the programme. 

Where framework agreements for scientific and teohnioal cooperation 
between  European countries and  the European Communities  have been 
concluded,  organisations  and  entreprises  established  in  those 
countries  may  participate  in  a  project  undertaken  within  this 
programme. 

Article 8 

This Deoision is addressed to the Member States. 

Done at Brussels, 

For the Counoil 

The President 

-  17  -

A NN  £_X 

1. 

Objectives 

c o n s t i t u t es 

the 
This  programme 
development  of  an  operational  machine  t r a n s l a t i on  system  of 
advanced  design, 
o f f i c i al 
Community  languages.  The  s p e c i f ic  o b j e c t i v es  of  the  programme 
are  : 

dealing  with 

capable 

towards 

f i r st 

s t ep 

the 

a ll 

of 

( a)  Creation  Ql 

the 

c o n d i t i o ns 

for 

the 

t r a n s i t i on 

to 

an 

operational  system 

implementation  of  a  development,  testing  and  research 
environment  capable of supporting  large-scale systems; 

extension  of  the  linguistic  coverage  and  large-scale 
testing  of  the  analysis  and  synthesis  modules  for all 
languages covered by EUROTRA; 

the  definition  of  common  methods  for  large-scale 
other 
development 
applications involving natural language; 

machine  translation 

for 

and 

experimentation and evaluation of relayed transfer, using 
an interface structure as pivot; 

research, prototype  implementation and evaluation  of new 
linguistic  models  aimed  at  the  improvement  of  the 
interlinguality of the interface structure and control of 
overgeneration; 

research,  prototypical  implementation  and  evaluation of 
methods  for  the  use  of  subjeot-field  and  text-type 
other 
specific 
applications. 

translation 

knowledge 

for 

and 

(b)  Advancement of work on lexicography and terminology 

d e f i n i t i on 
integration 
c o l l e c t i o n s; 

of 

of 

common  methods 
e x i s t i ng 

l e x i c al 

and 

and 

t o o ls 

the 
for 
terminological 

' p a r t i c i p a t i on 

in 

the 

d e f i n i t i on 

of 

i n t e r n a t i o n al 

standards  for  t e x t u a l, 

l e x i c al  and  terminological  data. 

( c)  Training  and  coopérative  p r o j e c ts 

-  16  -

training  of  researohers  and  engineers 
scheme; 

through  a  grant 

setting-up,  experimentation  and  evaluation  of  cooperation 
schemes  between  research  i n s t i t u t es  and  industry. 

2. 

Priority  nfitl <™  llnftfl *nrt  «nljmfclfln  ATMI  tff^Tll ftftl flOJltfiPt 

2.1. System development, testing and research environment 

On  the  basis  of  the  critical  review  of  the  prototype 
implementations and  the  specifications  produced by  the  end of 
June  1990 the implementation  of a system development,  testing 
and research environment  will be commissioned  to the  European 
software industry on a turn-key basis. 

This environment should have  the following characteristics : 

a  powerful  and  user-friendly  formalism  for  desoribing 
linguistic facts  (to encode dictionaries and grammars); 

a special-purpose data management  system for the creation 
and maintenance  of  large-scale  dictionaries  and  grammarr 
with  special  user  services  for  the  addition,  inspeoti 
and modification of the linguistio data; 

an  efficient  rule  interpreter  capable  of  dealing  witix 
large dictionaries, grammars and texts; 

a  set  of  testing  tools  with  special  attention  to 
interactive 
of 
testing 
dictionaries and grammars. 

oorreotion 

run-time 

and 

The system development  environment  will pay special  attention 
to  modularity  to  ensure  the  re-usability  of  the  linguistic 
resources  created  through  the  possibility  of  oombining  the 
various modules in different  ways  to fulfil speoial  tasks and 
of interfacing them with external applications. 

2.2. Language-gpeoiflo Research and Development work 

2.2.1. Review 

and 

extension 

of 

thS 

existing 

implementations 

For each of the nine languages oovered,  the analysis and 
synthesis modules  produced  by  the  EUROTRA  programme  will 
be  thoroughly  reviewed  to  ensure  their  generality  and 
adjusted to the features of the revised  formalism. 

On  the  basis  of  these  revised  implementations  the 
grammatical  coverage  will  be  gradually  extended  to 
include  additional  text  and  discourse  types.  No  large-
scale  lexical  and  terminological  development  work  is 
planned  for  this  phase  pending  the  outcome  of  the 
research 
and 
of 
re-usability 
terminological resources  (see 2.3  below). 

lexical 

the 

on 

-  10 -

2.2.2. Relayed  transfer 

The  research  and  experimentation  are  to  determine  the 
feasibility of this approach and the optimal strategy for 
its Implementation. 

2.3. Llnguistio research of general Interest 

This  action  line  is  intended  to  gradually  improve  the 
linguistlo  performance  of  the  system  and  the  quality  of 
translation. It will be organized  along  three main directions 

general 
the 
research 
interlinguality  of  the interface structure and  to  reduce 
overgeneration; 

linguistic 

increase 

to 

use  of  subject-field  specific  knowledge  (terminologies, 
classification  schemes,  paradigmatic  relations,  domain 
models, knowledge bases  etc.); 
use  of  text  and  discourse  type-specifio  constraints  to 
reduce overgeneration. 

It  can  be  predicted  that  some  progress  will  be  made  in  the 
course  of  this  programme,  but  additional  efforts  must  be 
foreseen for the future. 

2.4.  Research  i n to  advanced  system  a r c h i t e c t u r es 

To  create  a  potential  for  innovation  and  keep  pace  with  the 
fast  advancement  of  hardware  and  software  technologies  a 
continuous research into new formalisms, software and hardware 
architectures  is  to  be  foreseen,  which will  lead  in  selected 
cases  to  experimentation  and  prototype  Implementations  (e.g. 
parallel system architectures). 

2.5. Re-usability of lexical and  temlnologloal resources 

The  details  of  this  aotion  line  will  be  defined  through 
project definition studies to be carried out in 1989 and 1990. 

It is expected to have two main components : 

development  of  methods  and  tools  for  the  conversion  of 
the formalized parts of existing dictionaries which oover 
mostly  orthographic  phonological,  morphological  and 
syntactlo information; 

dictionaries 

research into  the utilization  of non-formalized  portions 
of 
subject 
classification, discourse types, definitions and  examples 
or  citations.  This  is  an  advanced  research  topic  whose 
outcome cannot be predicted  now. 

ooncern 

mostly 

which 

- 20 -

2.6. Standards for textual, lexical  and terminologie! data 

is 

c l o s e ly  related 

This  activity 
linguistio  resources 
in 
support  and  stimulate  international  a c t i v i t i es 
in  close  oooperation  with  professional 
national  and  international  standards  organizations. 

the  re-usability  of 
future.  The  Commission  will 
field 
associations  and 

in  this 

the 

to 

2.7.  education  and  training 

A  number  of  research  grants  w i ll  be  awarded  to  post-graduate 
students  to  participate 
in  the  research  and  development  work 
In  the  projects  outlined  hereabove. 

2.8.  Evaluation 

At  the end of the programme  the  results will  be  evaluated  by 
independent experts. 

5.  Modalities of Execution 

The  various  action  lines  pursue  different  objectives  which 
demand  different  forms  of  organizational,  contractual  and 
financial schemes. 

3.1. Services Contracts 

The  implementation  of  the  system  development,  testing  and 
research environment  (action line  2.1) which will provide all 
participating  parties  with  a  common  set  of  tools,  will  be 
entrusted  to industrial  contractors  on  the basis of calls for 
tenders. It will be financed fully from  the Community  budget. 

3.2.  National  research  teams 

The work concerning  the different  languages  (aotion  line  2.2) 
will be oarrled out  by  national  research  teams  in  the member 
States,  and  oo-financed  by  the  Community  and  the  member 
States. 

3.3. Shared cost projects 

The linguistio researoh of general Interest (aotion line 2.3), 
research  and  development  into  advanced  system  architectures 
(aotion  line  2.4)  and  re-usability  of  lexical  and 
terminological  resources  (action  line  2.5  ) will  be  carried 
out  as  cooperative  ventures  between  industries,  research 
centres  and  EUROTRA  teams.  The  specif io  projects  and 
contraotors will  be  selected  on  a  call  for  tenders/proposals 
basis. The Community  contribution to these projects will be in 
general 50%. 

- 21 -

3.4. Grants 

Grants will be awarded to qualified post-graduate students. 

3.5. Subsidies 

The  Commission  will  award  subsidies  to  professional 
associations  and standards organisations for action line 2.6. 

4.  Indicative break-down of the expenses 

The  indicative  break-down  of  the  amount  of  10 million ECU 
deemed  necessary  for  the- execution  of  the  programme  is  as 
follows (in 1000 ECU) : 

(a)  System development environment 

(b)  EC contribution to the national research teams 

(c)  Shared-cost research projects 

(d)  Training, subsidies, evaluation 

Total 

2,000 

4,000 

3,000 

1,000 

10,000 

- 22 -

AHHEL2 

OPINION OP THE MANAGEMENT  AND COORDINATION ADVISORY  COMMITTEE 

LINGUISTIC PROBLEMS  (CGC-12) 

of 26 JUNE  1989 

Subjeot  :  Draft  proposal  for  a  speoific  programme  for  the 
preparation  of  the  industrial  development  of  a 
practical EUROTRA  system 

At  its  meeting  of  26  June  1989  the  Committee  has  examined  the 
revised draft  of the Communication  to Council and  the proposal for 
a  Council  Decision  annexed  to  it  concerning  a  specific  programme 
for  the  preparation  of  the  development  of  a  practical  EUROTRA 
system  (doc CGC-12/193/89 rev.l). 

The Committee  notes that  the programme  proposed  covers  the aotlons 
foreseen under line 8.4  of  the Framework  Programme  1987-1991  which 
includes  with  regard  to  linguistio  problems  in  addition  to  the 
completion  of the EUROTRA  programme  decided  by Council  on  20 June 
1989 : 

support to the industrial development  of a machine translation 
system; 
development  of  methods  and  tools  for  the  reusability  of 
lexical resources in computerized  applications and; 
creation of standards for lexical and terminological data. 

The Committee notes that for this speciflo programme  10 million ECU 
are earmarked, of which 5 will become available only on 1992 as the 
contribution  to the overhang  of  the  Framework  Programme,  and  that 
therefore  the  objectives  of  this  programme  must  be  necessarily 
limited. 

The Committee endorses the objectives and priorities set out in the 
proposal  and  considers  them  realistio  with  respect  to  the 
resources  and  time  scales  of  this  programme.  It  stresses  the 
Importance of a Community policy in the domain of lexicography. 

The  Committee  welcomes  the  proposed  mode  of  execution  of  the 
programme  by  which  in  addition  to  R&D  carried  out  by  national 
research teams under contraots of association, cooperative projeots 
are  foreseen  which  are  to  stimulate  the  involvement  of  industry 
through  oooperatlon with  universities.  It  considers  also  that  the 
use  of  10% of the resources  earmarked  for  training  through grants 
and exchange of researchers is an effective measure  to improve the 
situation, with regard  to  the scarcity  of qualified  researchers and 
engineers in this subjeot field. 

The  Committee  reiterates  the  urgent  need  for  a  global  Community 
polioy  and  a  strateglo  R&D  programme  in  the  field  of  linguistio 
technologies,  which  it  expressed  in  its  opinion  of  27  February 
1989,  and  expects  that  its  recommendations  will  be  taken  into 
account  in  the  Commission's  proposal  for  the  revision  of  the 
Framework Programme. 

- 23 -

AHMBE III 

SPECIFIC PROGRAMME  FOR THE PREPARATION OF THE DEVELOPMENT 

OF AN  OPERATIONAL 

E U R 0 T R A  SYSTEM 

FINANCIAL  STATEMENT 

1.  Budget item concerned  : Item B7389  (EUROTRA) 

2. 

Legal basis 

Article 130 Q, (2) of the EEC Treaty 
Council  Decision  87/516/Euratom,  CEE  of  28  September  1987^) 
(2) 
/  /CEE of 

Council Decision 

3.  Description, aims and  justification 

3.1. Description 

The  objective  of  the  programme  is  to  support  the 
development  of a  machine  translation  system  by  turning 
the  achievements  of  the  current  EUROTRA  programme, 
namely,  an  operational  system  prototype  in  a  limited 
field  and  for  limited  categories  of  text,  into  the 
basis for further development  . 

The  programme  spans  nine  aotlon  lines,  from  the 
implementation  of  a  system  development,  testing  and 
research  environment,  through  activities  leading  to 
the  reusability 
terminological 
resources,  to  a  final  evaluation  by  independent 
experts.  The  various  lines  will  have  different 
contraotual and  financial schemes. 

lexical  and 

of 

3.2  Alios 

On  oompletion  of  the programme,  the  following  results 
are expected : 

- a set of software tools and a  tested methodology for 

large scale system  development; 

- a  set  of  tools  and  methods  for  building  large-scale 

dictionaries from existing lexical resources; 

- a  set  of  tools  and  methods  for  the  incorporation of 

terminological oolleotions; 

- well  tested 

Implementations  of  analysis  and 
synthesis  modules  in  all  nine  Community  languages 
with broad  grammatical  ooverage and a  representative 
lexical ooverage; 

(1)  OJ NV  L 302 Of 24.10.1987, p 
(2)  OJ N*. L 

Of 

- 24 -

- the  implementation  of  relayed  transfer  if  the 

corresponding  experimentation is successful; 

- a  strategy  for  the  industrial  development  of  a 
practical  multilingual  translation  system  and  of  a 
number of related products; 

- a  strategy  for  the  development  of  a  generalized 
linguistio  technology  reusable in a  large variety of 
applications. 

3.3. Justification 

The  main  objeotive  of  the  programme  is  to  oreate, 
starting  from  the  BUROTRA  prototype,  the  appropriate 
conditions  for  a  large-scale  industrial  development. 
This includes  the development  of methods  and  tools for 
the  reusability  of  lexical  resources  in  computer 
applications  as  well  as  the  creation  of  standards  for 
lexical and terminological data. 

4. 

Financial implications. 

The overall costs of the duration of the programme,  1.7.1990 -
30.6.1992, break down as follows ('000 ECU) : 

(a)  System development and testing environment 
(b)  Community contribution to the national research 

teams 

( c)  Cooperative  projects 
(d)  Training,  subsidies,  evaluation 

Total 

2 000 

4 000 
3  000 
1  000 

10  000 

To  this  must  be  added  7 million ECU  of  national  contributions 
(4 million  to  the  national  researoh  teams  and  3 million ECU  of 
contributions  from  participants  to  cooperative  projeots) bringing 
the total oost of the programme to 17 million ECU. 

The  planned  finanolng  of  the  programme,  1990-1992,  is  the 
following : 

Item B7S89 

Budgeted  researoh  appropriations  : 

Xear 

1990 
1991 
1992 
1993 

commitments 

2 000* 
3 000 
5 000* ' 

Payments 

100 
2 800 
5 000 
2 100 

* 

earmarked  for  the  specific  programme  in the  1990  preliminary 
draft budget 

*•  contribution to the overhang of the Framework Programme, 1987-

1991 

- 25 -

Budgeted operating appropriations : 

The  preliminary  draft  budget  for  1990  foresees  under  item  B7389 
five  temporary  posts  (2A  +  IB  + 2C) for  this  speoifio  programme. 
The  administrative  expenditure  related  to  these  posts  has  been 
included  in  the  appropriations  requested  for  chapter  A29  of  the 
1990 preliminary draft budget. 

ISSN 0254-1475 

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