A formalism is a set of notation with well-defined semantics (namely for the interpretation of the symbols used and their manipulation), by means of which one formally expresses certain domain knowledge, which is to be utilised for specific purposes. In this paper, we are interested in formalisms which are being used or have applications in the domain of machine translation (MT). These can range from specialised languages for linguistic programming (SLLPs) in NIT, like ROBRA in the ARIANE system and GRADE in the Mu-system, to linguistic formalisms like those of the Government and Binding theory and the Lexical Functional.
