PULÆ is an attempt at unidirectional machine translation from an oral-auditive language, Portuguese, into the linear representation of a gestural-visual language, Brazilian Sign Language, or simply Libras. Its main goal is to convert isolated Portuguese sentences into a specialized Libras script (LIST - LIbras Script for Translation) that is a compromise between (i) simplification of the translation process and (ii) sufficiency for speech synthesis in Libras. This script, which is also under specification, is one important by-product of this project.

Features

·        human-aided: PULÆ intends to exploit intensive human aid to achieve high quality translation, which in this specific case heavily relies on e.g. anaphora resolution, sense disambiguation and common sense. It is paramount to mention that no expertise, either in Linguistics or Libras, shall be required of PULÆ’s aiding users but medium proficiency in Portuguese;

·        interlingua-based: PULÆ employs the semantic representation UNL (Universal Networking Language. Uchida, Zhu & Della Senta - A gift for the millenium. Tóquio: IAS/UNU, 1999) as a bridge between Portuguese and LIST;

·        comics-driven: current development tackle children’s comics translation. This has been an important simplification analysis step that makes it possible for PULÆ to circumvent, if only temporarily, such difficult points as complex language and actual narration, which is especially challenging in the case at hand.

Features

We have just finished developing a small prototype to test some early hypotheses and gather requirements for a complete redesign. This prototype tackle one single medium-difficulty story.

Team

Maria das Graças Volpe Nunes (coordinator)
Ronaldo Teixeira Martins (computational linguist in charge)
Ricardo Hasegawa
Juliana Galvani Greghi
Jorge Marques Pelizzoni

Finantial Support
MEC – Brazilian Ministry of Education and Culture

Contact
Maria das Graças Volpe Nunes: gracan@icmc.usp.br

Related Publications

Nunes, M.G.V., Pelizzoni, J. M., Greghi, J. G., Hasegawa, R., Martins, R. T. Projeto PULO. NILC Project Report, Jun. 2003. download.zip