CMPU 395: Computational Linguistics
Fall 2007

  • Time and place : Mondays 3-6, Room 105 OLB
  • Instructor: Professor Nancy Ide
  • Office: Room 119 OLB
  • Phone: (845) 437-5988
  • Email: ide@cs.vassar.edu
  • Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 1-2pm and by appointment
  • Syllabus          Schedule          Assignments          CS395 Mailing List

    Course Description

    Computational Linguistics addresses the fundamental questions at the intersection of human languages and computer science. How can computers acquire, comprehend and produce natural languages, such as English? How can computational methods give us insight into observed human language phenomena? How can you get a job at Google? In this interdisciplinary introductory course, you will learn how computers can do useful things with human languages, such as translate from French into English, summarize a magazine article into a few sentences, and find the main topics in the day's news. You will also learn about how computational methods can help linguists explain language phenomena, including automatic discovery of different word senses and phrase structure.

    Over the past decade, computational linguistics has been revolutionized by statistical and probabilistic methods; you will learn about robust methods of probabilistic parameter estimation and inference. The course will include learning new methods, discussions, and hands-on laboratories. While some limited computer programming will be necessary, the course does not assume previous experience in programming.

    Resources

    PythonAlso, see the official Python web site.

    The Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK)

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