Textbook

Manning, C. and Schütze, H. Foundations of Statistical Natural Language Processing. MIT Press. We will also be using readings from Dan Jurafsky and James Martin, Speech and Language Processing (on-line).

Other Books and Resources

Mark Lutz and David Ascher, Learning Python, O'Reilly.
Chris Fehily, Python Visual QuickStart Guide, Peachpit Press.

Course Requirements

Grades will be determined on the basis of performance on five assignments (50%), a final project and presentation (40%), and class participation (10%). The Schedule of Lectures, Readings, and Assignments contains links to assignments, lecture slides, and specifies due dates, etc. Information may also be disseminated via the class mailing list.

Expected skills

• Basic familiarity with logic, basic mathematics (logs, exponents, etc), basic probability
• Ability to use a computer, word processor. Readiness to learn a basic programming language, with hand-holding

Hardware/Software Requirements

Students can use their own computers, in which case you should install the Natural Language ToolKit (NLTK) and required software (mainly, Python) on your machine. Students can also use the computers in the Asprey Lab in the Computer Science Department, which have all of the required software already installed.