Comparative Topics in Linguistics (from a Computational Perspective)
LING 6520
Fall 2016
Time and Location: Tuesday/Thursday 11:00 - 12:15, Fleming 279
Course Credit: 3 credit hours
Assessment: Homeworks; Two paper presentations; Term Project.
Office Hours: Tuesday 3:30-4:30, Thursday 1-2, Fleming 289
Textbook:
Jurafsky and Martin: Speech and Language Processing, Edition 2, and selected readings
Instructor:
Martha Palmer
Theme
This course will focus on comparing and contrasting computational
grammars and computational lexicons. Tree-adjoining grammars will be
taught in depth and their coverage of certain syntactic phenomena will
be compared to that of Lexical-Functional grammars, Head-driven Phrase
Structured Grammars and Combinatory Categorial Grammars. The ways in which
Comptational lexicons such as WordNet, FrameNet, VerbNet and PropBank can
interact with these formalisms will also be discussed. Selected portions of the Jurafsky
and Martin NLP textbook will be relevant, as well as journal and
conference papers. The readings will be available on D2L.
Suggested Schedule and Readings
Introduction and Module 1: Tree-Adjoining Grammer
- Aug 23, 25, (30-No class), Sep 1, 6, 8
- Sep 8, CS Talk, ECCR 265, Jordan Boyd-Graber
Module 2: Combinatory Categorial Grammar
- Sep 13, (15-No class), 20, 22, 27, 29, Oct 4, (6-No class)
- 9/16, ICS talk, MUEN D430, Lucy Vanderwende
Module 3: Head-driven Phrase Structured Grammar (and Sign-based Construction Grammar)
- Oct 11, 13, 18, (20 - no class), 25, 27
- 10/14, ICS talk, MUEN D430, Bil Croft
Module 4: Lexical-Functional Grammar
- Nov 1, (3 - No class), 8, 10, 15, 17
- 11/18, ICS talk, MUEN D430, Al Kim
Thanksgiving Break
Project Presentations - 1 hour each
- Nov 29 11-1, LL + LVC video, Dec 1 SM + comparison discussion, 11-12:30,
- Dec 6 11-1, TL and GK, Dec 8 11-1 SM and KS
Term Project Intention
The goal behind this is assignment is to have you become familiar
enough with at least one of these grammars that you can explore in
depth a cutting edge application of the grammar to a particular
linguistic phenomena having to do with syntax, semantics or
pragmatics, and to take a stab at moving the state of the art
forward. The project could be primarily linguistic analysis or
primarily a description of algorithms or something in between. You are
welcome to work alone or in 2 person teams. You should assume that you
will have to read something like 3 or 4 papers over and above the
class required readings to ground yourself in the research
area. Presumably this project will be tied to the first paper you
present, but it should definitely be tied to the second one. You are
expected to turn in a 5-10 page, single spaced paper describing your
project, and give a 10-15 minute presentation on it, after a 15 minute
presentation on the closely related paper
In addition to your own Term Project, you are expected to be a
discussant on another project. The Discussant assignments will be
posted on the web page once the term projects are finalized. That will
involve reading the project background paper(s), asking constructive
questions during the project presentation, and turning in a form that
will be provided.
Papers that could be presented
Questions to consider when choosing papers to present
I. Which grammar would be most effective for: (from papers)
- Phrase structure parses?
- Dependency parses?
- Construction Grammar parses?
II. Which grammar blends the most readily with: (from papers)
- PropBank?
- VerbNet?
- FrameNet?
III. Which grammar provides the most support for coreference?
Syllabus Statements:
Accommodation for Disabilities
If you qualify for accommodations because of a disability, please
submit to me a letter from Disability Services in a timely
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professor.
Religious Holidays
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because of religious obligations, have conflicts with scheduled exams,
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