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A systematic analysis of translation model search spaces

Published 1 January 2009Open access
Michael Auli, Adam Lopez, Hieu Hoang, Philipp Koehn
Citations26
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TL;DR

This work uses a simple technique to discover induction errors, which occur when good translations are absent from model search spaces, and suggests that the search spaces of phrase-based and hierarchical phrase- based models are highly overlapping despite the well known structural differences.

Abstract

Translation systems are complex, and most metrics do little to pinpoint causes of error or isolate system differences. We use a simple technique to discover induction errors, which occur when good translations are absent from model search spaces. Our results show that a common pruning heuristic drastically increases induction error, and also strongly suggest that the search spaces of phrase-based and hierarchical phrase-based models are highly overlapping despite the well known structural differences.

Keywords

Computer Science