The KANT Machine Translation System: From R&D to Initial Deployment

The KANT system (Knowledge-based, Accurate Natural-language Translation) is a set of software tools for automatic and interactive analysis of source text and generation of target text (Mitamura, et al., 1991). It has been primarily targeted towards the translation of technical text in controlled subdomains (Mitamura and Nyberg, 1995). Initially an outgrowth of research ideas following the completion of the KBMT-89 system at CMU (Goodman and Nirenburg, 1990), KANT has been scaled up for multilingual document production in an industrial setting. In this paper, we discuss the facets of KANT which are of potential interest to the LISA audience: its technical foundation, its intended domain(s) of application, its current performance, and our future plans regarding its application and commercialization.