@inproceedings{yang-etal-2026-glossmate,
title = "{G}loss{MATE}: Multi-Agent Translator Explanations for Glosses",
author = "Yang, Changbing and
Littell, Patrick and
Bernier-Colborne, Gabriel and
Lu, Yanfei and
Geng, Mengzhe",
editor = "Piperidis, Stelios and
Bel, N{\'u}ria and
van den Heuvel, Henk and
Ide, Nancy and
Krek, Simon and
Toral, Antonio",
booktitle = "Proceedings of the Fifteenth Language Resources and Evaluation Conference",
month = may,
year = "2026",
address = "Palma de Mallorca, Spain",
publisher = "ELRA Language Resource Association",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2026.lrec-1.709/",
doi = "10.63317/5bhwdv5gcjqz",
pages = "9018--9029",
abstract = "This paper introduces GlossMATE, a multi-agent critique-and-judge system that translates the gloss line in Interlinear Glossed Text (IGT) into fluent English using Large Language Models (LLMs). GlossMATE integrates linguist-provided resources (e.g., gloss-tag explanations, lexicon entries, curated IGT) with in-context learning and a multi-agent critique-and-judge procedure that iteratively evaluates and refines candidate translations. Our experiments show that leveraging analogous examples, explicit linguistic explanations, and collaborative agent interactions can enhance translation quality across several low-resource and polysynthetic languages. We also incorporate human linguists into the critique loop for selected languages. Case studies on three Indigenous languages further demonstrate the complementary strengths of human-in-the-loop feedback and multi-agent reasoning for language documentation tasks."
}<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<modsCollection xmlns="http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3">
<mods ID="yang-etal-2026-glossmate">
<titleInfo>
<title>GlossMATE: Multi-Agent Translator Explanations for Glosses</title>
</titleInfo>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Changbing</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Yang</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Patrick</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Littell</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Gabriel</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Bernier-Colborne</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Yanfei</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Lu</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Mengzhe</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Geng</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<originInfo>
<dateIssued>2026-05</dateIssued>
</originInfo>
<typeOfResource>text</typeOfResource>
<relatedItem type="host">
<titleInfo>
<title>Proceedings of the Fifteenth Language Resources and Evaluation Conference</title>
</titleInfo>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Stelios</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Piperidis</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">editor</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Núria</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Bel</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">editor</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Henk</namePart>
<namePart type="family">van den Heuvel</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">editor</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Nancy</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Ide</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">editor</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Simon</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Krek</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">editor</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Antonio</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Toral</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">editor</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<originInfo>
<publisher>ELRA Language Resource Association</publisher>
<place>
<placeTerm type="text">Palma de Mallorca, Spain</placeTerm>
</place>
</originInfo>
<genre authority="marcgt">conference publication</genre>
</relatedItem>
<abstract>This paper introduces GlossMATE, a multi-agent critique-and-judge system that translates the gloss line in Interlinear Glossed Text (IGT) into fluent English using Large Language Models (LLMs). GlossMATE integrates linguist-provided resources (e.g., gloss-tag explanations, lexicon entries, curated IGT) with in-context learning and a multi-agent critique-and-judge procedure that iteratively evaluates and refines candidate translations. Our experiments show that leveraging analogous examples, explicit linguistic explanations, and collaborative agent interactions can enhance translation quality across several low-resource and polysynthetic languages. We also incorporate human linguists into the critique loop for selected languages. Case studies on three Indigenous languages further demonstrate the complementary strengths of human-in-the-loop feedback and multi-agent reasoning for language documentation tasks.</abstract>
<identifier type="citekey">yang-etal-2026-glossmate</identifier>
<identifier type="doi">10.63317/5bhwdv5gcjqz</identifier>
<location>
<url>https://aclanthology.org/2026.lrec-1.709/</url>
</location>
<part>
<date>2026-05</date>
<extent unit="page">
<start>9018</start>
<end>9029</end>
</extent>
</part>
</mods>
</modsCollection>
%0 Conference Proceedings
%T GlossMATE: Multi-Agent Translator Explanations for Glosses
%A Yang, Changbing
%A Littell, Patrick
%A Bernier-Colborne, Gabriel
%A Lu, Yanfei
%A Geng, Mengzhe
%Y Piperidis, Stelios
%Y Bel, Núria
%Y van den Heuvel, Henk
%Y Ide, Nancy
%Y Krek, Simon
%Y Toral, Antonio
%S Proceedings of the Fifteenth Language Resources and Evaluation Conference
%D 2026
%8 May
%I ELRA Language Resource Association
%C Palma de Mallorca, Spain
%F yang-etal-2026-glossmate
%X This paper introduces GlossMATE, a multi-agent critique-and-judge system that translates the gloss line in Interlinear Glossed Text (IGT) into fluent English using Large Language Models (LLMs). GlossMATE integrates linguist-provided resources (e.g., gloss-tag explanations, lexicon entries, curated IGT) with in-context learning and a multi-agent critique-and-judge procedure that iteratively evaluates and refines candidate translations. Our experiments show that leveraging analogous examples, explicit linguistic explanations, and collaborative agent interactions can enhance translation quality across several low-resource and polysynthetic languages. We also incorporate human linguists into the critique loop for selected languages. Case studies on three Indigenous languages further demonstrate the complementary strengths of human-in-the-loop feedback and multi-agent reasoning for language documentation tasks.
%R 10.63317/5bhwdv5gcjqz
%U https://aclanthology.org/2026.lrec-1.709/
%U https://doi.org/10.63317/5bhwdv5gcjqz
%P 9018-9029
Markdown (Informal)
[GlossMATE: Multi-Agent Translator Explanations for Glosses](https://aclanthology.org/2026.lrec-1.709/) (Yang et al., LREC 2026)
ACL
- Changbing Yang, Patrick Littell, Gabriel Bernier-Colborne, Yanfei Lu, and Mengzhe Geng. 2026. GlossMATE: Multi-Agent Translator Explanations for Glosses. In Proceedings of the Fifteenth Language Resources and Evaluation Conference, pages 9018–9029, Palma de Mallorca, Spain. ELRA Language Resource Association.