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Language and Machines Computers in Translation and Linguistics (1966) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix 19. Machine Translation and Linguistics
Pages 121-123

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From page 121...
... , p. 46 we read, "MT is simultaneously both a workshop, where the methods of precise linguistic research are perfected independently of the concrete sphere of application of these methods, and an experimental field, where the results are verified by experience." Much of the recent change in linguistics has come from clarification gained through formalizing disciplines, and these changes are surely connected with the developments underlying computer studies, as well as with trends in the growth of contemporary logic and philosophy.
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From page 122...
... The important difference in their belief of that time was that they thought syntax related only to the surface structure, the visible or audible configurations of the output, and they denied by and large that process-type statements relating to rules that worked on underlying abstract expressions were properly a part of grammar. There can tee no doubt that experiments in computer parsing of ordinary sentences, using reasonable grammars as hitherto conceived and programs that expose all ambiguities, have greatly helped many linguists to abandon their earlier inadequate syntactic views.
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From page 123...
... There can be no doubt that the disappointingly slender computer results realized on the basis of such theory must have been important in shaking at least some inquisitive linguists out of their contentment. If machine translation had various negative results, this was one that was potent in a singularly fruitful way.
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