THIS REPORT IS A SURVEY OF AND COMMENTARY ON RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENTS IN THE FIELDS OF INFORMATION RETRIEVAL AND LINGUISTICS AND THE APPLICABILITY OF RESULTS TO THE FORMULATION OF INFORMATION RETRIEVAL LANGUAGES AND MACHINE TRANSLATION. COMMENTARY IS WEIGHTED TOWARD IMPARTING AN AWARENESS OF MANY OF THE SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS OF A REASONABLY EFFICIENT IR LANGUAGE, THE COMPLEXITIES INVOLVED IN TRANSLATING FROM ONE LANGUAGE TO ANOTHER (BE IT NATURAL LANGUAGE, IR LANGUAGE, OR OTHER SYNTHETIC LANGUAGES), AND THE DIFFICULTIES INHERENT IN DESCRIBING CONCEPTS AND REPRESENTING MEANINGS. REAL AND PUTATIVE RELATIONS WHICH HAVE BEEN MADE BETWEEN LOGIC, LINGUISTICS, AND INFORMATION RETRIEVAL ARE EXPLORED IN SOME DETAIL. A DISCUSSION IS INCLUDED OF CLASSIFICATION FROM A THEORETICAL POINT OF VIEW, INCLUDING--CLASSIFICATIONS OF LANGUAGE, TRADITIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHIC CLASSIFICATION, THE BRITISH CLASSIFICATION RESEARCH GROUP, THE PROBLEM OF CATEGORIES IN CLASSIFICATION, THE INTEGRATIVE LEVELS' APPROACH, AND THE PROBLEM OF "RELATIONS." ACTIVITIES IN THE UNITED STATES, EUROPE, AND THE SOVIET UNION ARE CONSIDERED. THIS DOCUMENT IS AVAILABLE AS AD-628-183 FROM THE CLEARINGHOUSE FOR FEDERAL SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL INFORMATION, SPRINGFIELD, VIRGINIA 22151, $3.00 FOR HARD COPY, $0.65 FOR MICROFICHE, 214 PAGES. (AUTHOR/CM)