Computational Linguistics, Winter 2008/09

Administration

Instructor:
Shuly Wintner, shuly@cs.haifa.ac.il. Office hours: Wednesday 15:00-16:00, Jacobs 403. Phone: (828)8180.
Times:
Wednesday, 16:00-19:00.
Place:
Education 570.
Prerequisites:
Computational models (203.3510). Students without the required background should talk to the instructor prior to registration.
Attendance:
Optional but highly recommended.
Grading:
The final grade will be based on a take-home exam. You will have to adhere to the course Honor Code, by pledging that you have not given, nor received, nor witnessed any unauthorized assistance on the work you submit.
Home assignments:
No mandatory assignments will be given, but students will be encouraged to solve problems from previous editions of the course.

Content

Textbook:
There is no recommended textbook for this course, but some of the material can be found in Speech and Language Processing, by Daniel Jurafsky and James H. Martin. It's a good book, albeit too shallow sometimes. See a recommended bibliography list.
Syllabus:
Introduction
  • Applications of natural language processing
  • The structure of natural languages
  • Different levels of language understanding: morphology, syntax and semantics
  • Ambiguity
Morphology
  • Introduction to morphology: word structure
  • Inflections and derivations
  • Finite-state automata
  • Finite-state transducers
Syntax
  • Introduction to syntax: the structure of natural languages
  • Context-free grammars: grammars, forms, derivations, trees, languages
  • Parsing: top-down, CYK algorithm, Earley algorithm, bottom-up chart parsing
  • The complexity of natural language
  • The limitations of CFGs
  • Unification grammars: feature structures and unification
Empirical approaches to Natural Language Processing
  • Probabilistic techniques
  • Applications

Announcements

February 22nd, 2009
Exams graded.
February 12, 2009
The final exam is available. Good luck!.
February 12, 2009
Review materials added.
January 20th, 2009
Slides added.
January 18th, 2009
An additional class will be held on Wednesday, February 4th, 16:00-19:00, in Education 570. A review class will be given on Wednesday, February 11th, 16:00-19:00, in Education 570.
January 11th, 2009
Take-home exam dates change: February 13th through February 19th.
December 29th, 2008
You should now be able to do last year's Challenge 3. Check out also Challenge 3 of 2006 and 2004. Recitation notes added.
December 21st, 2008
Slides added. More recitation notes added.
December 16th, 2008
The exam will most likely take place from February 9th through February 15th, 2009.
December 2nd, 2008
Slides uploaded: parsing, complexity
November 30th, 2008
First recitation notes upload.
November 26th, 2008
Slides uploaded: CFG. Try to solve Challenge 2 of last year.
November 13th, 2008
Now is a good time to start looking at home assignments from previous years. By now you should be able to solve last year's Challenge 1.
November 13th, 2008
Slides uploaded: syntax.
November 11th, 2008
Slides uploaded: finite-state technology.
November 5th, 2008
Slides uploaded: introduction, morphology.
November 4th, 2008
Course web site on-line.

Copies of the slides

Slides by topic: introduction; morphology; finite-state technology; syntax; context-free grammars; parsing; the complexity of natural languages; unification grammars; empirical methods.

Recitation notes: FSA; CFG1; CFG2; PC-PATR; Parsing

Some review questions and some files with solutions.

Links

Computational Linguistics, http://cs.haifa.ac.il/~shuly/teaching/09/nlp/
Maintained by shuly@cs.haifa.ac.il.