Course Info for Linguistics 889, Spring 1997
Course Info for Linguistics 889, Spring 1997
Topics in Computational Linguistics
What's new on this page?
Who's teaching the course?
Philip Resnik, the new computational linguist on the linguistics
faculty. You can check out his home page at http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~resnik.
What's the course about?
First we'll need to get up to speed on background issues in
computational linguistics (see below). After that, the course will
focus on the recent wave of quantitative and statistical approaches to
language and how they relate to traditional non-quantitative
approaches. By the end of the course students should:
- understand the basic ideas underlying recent approaches
- have an opinion of how these approaches relate to
"traditional" linguistics
- know what questions to ask when assessing a typical conference
paper that makes use of quantitative methodology
- have an idea what resources are available for empirical research
using corpora
What if I have no computational background?
This time around, the course will be taught without assuming
that participants have a background in computational linguistics. The
first part of the course will be aimed at getting across some
important, fundamental ideas that will then be used for the remainder
of the semester. Students (and faculty!) who have little or no
computational background are encouraged to attend.
But then what if I DO have a computational background?
Readings for the course will be organized as companion papers: each
reading will include both a less advanced and a more advanced paper on
a related topic. Students with more background will focus on the more
advanced paper, and in each class session we will progress from the
more fundamental material to the more advanced material.
Am I going to have to do any programming?
This is primarily a readings course. Students registered for the
course will be assigned some simple exercises that involve using a
computer to try out some of the approaches we discuss in class, but
this will not involve any "real" programming. However, students
are encouraged to have and use e-mail accounts, since the
class mailing list will be used for announcements and discussion.
Students with programming background can discuss alternative
course requirements with the instructor.
How does this course relate to Linguistics 645?
Ideally students will have taken Linguistics 645 to get the
computational linguistics background needed for the more advanced
papers. This time around, however, this course will neither assume
that students have taken 645. Nor will it replace 645, of
course! For Spring 1997 the two can be taken concurrently.
So, what exactly is on the syllabus?
See the syllabus.
Philip Resnik Phone: (301) 405-6760
Department of Linguistics Fax: (301) 405-7104
1401 Marie Mount Hall
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742 USA
By far the best way to reach me is by e-mail to resnik@umiacs.umd.edu.