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Article published In: Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada/Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics
Vol. 36:2 (2023) ► pp.585–614

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Sentence splitting in Arabic to Spanish translation

ORCiD logo with link | University of Granada
ORCiD logo with link | University of Granada
Published online: 4 July 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/resla.21008.rol
Abstract
Modern Standard Arabic makes extensive use of coordination particles whereas punctuation marks are scarce and erratic, leading to long clauses. This is generally assumed to hinder Sentence Boundary Detection and to promote sentence splitting when translating from Arabic into English. Previous literature on translation from Arabic to Spanish is practically inexistent. We have tested this hypothesis regarding translation from Arabic to Spanish on a sample of 282,714 graphic words extracted from a bilingual corpus of 8,681,110 graphic words and found that each Arabic sentence yielded an average of 1.5 Spanish sentences. Furthermore, our data shows the potential impact of directionality in that sentence splitting when translating from Arabic into Spanish is 50% more frequent than from English into Arabic. We also determined statistically that five elements (wa [و], ḥaythu [حيث], kamā [كما], wa-qad [وقد], and wa-dhalika [وذلك]) are the most salient potential markers for sentence splitting in the resulting Spanish translations. Our findings should be particularly interesting for Computational Linguistics and translator training.
Resumen
La división de oraciones en la traducción del árabe al español
El árabe moderno estándar tiende a la parataxis y emplea los signos de puntuación escasa e incoherentemente. Como consecuencia, las oraciones suelen ser largas. Se asume que esto dificulta la detección del límite entre oraciones y fomenta la división de oraciones al traducir al inglés. Prácticamente no existe investigación previa al respecto sobre la traducción del árabe al español. Con una muestra de 282 714 palabras gráficas tomadas de un corpus bilingüe de 8 681 110 palabras gráficas testamos la tendencia a dividir oraciones al traducir del árabe al español. Concluimos que cada oración árabe generó un promedio de 1,5 oraciones en español, que esa tendencia es un 50% mayor que al traducir del inglés al árabe y que cinco elementos (wa [و], ḥaythu [حيث], kamā [كما], wa-qad [وقد], and wa-dhalika [وذلك]) destacan como potenciales marcas de división de oraciones. Las conclusiones son de interés, en particular, para la Lingüística Computacional y la formación de traductores.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.State of the art
    • 2.1Automatic segmentation and alignment in Arabic
    • 2.2Translation studies
    • 2.3Conclusions
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Corpus
    • 3.2Sample
    • 3.3Elements of distortion
    • 3.4Segmentation
  • 4.Data
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Representativity, sentences, words, and average number of words per sentence
    • 5.2Splitting types
  • 6.Conclusions and future work
  • References
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Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Feria, Manuel & Juan Roldán
2025. Sentence splitting in Arabic to English and Spanish translation: a statistical based, training-oriented study. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 19:1 ► pp. 70 ff. DOI logo

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