185.A67 Computational Semantics
This course is in all assigned curricula part of the STEOP.
This course is in at least 1 assigned curriculum part of the STEOP.

2016W, VU, 2.0h, 3.0EC, to be held in blocked form

Properties

  • Semester hours: 2.0
  • Credits: 3.0
  • Type: VU Lecture and Exercise

Aim of course

Computational semantics deals with the extraction of semantic representations from natural language text. The types of representations can be divided into logical representations that allow for logical reasoning, and representations based on similarity or probability that allow for applications like clustering and information retrieval.

In the domain of logical analysis we will give an overview of Montague Semantics following the textbook [Blackburn, 2005].

In the domain of representations based on similarity or probability we discuss Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA), Probabilistic Latent Semantic Analysis (PLSA), and graph-based semantic similarity measures.

Subject of course

Introduction to semantics of natural languages

 Logical representation and reasoning

  • First-order logic

  • Lambda calculus

  • Underspecified representation

  • First-order reasoning

Representation and reasoning based on similarity or probability

  • Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA)

  • Probabilistic Latent Semantic Analysis (PLSA) and Expectation Maximization (EM) Algorithm

  • Graph-based semantic similarity

Discourse Representation Theory (DRT)

Syntax learning

Didactics

The exercise consists of a theoretical and practical part with programming examples.

 

Further Information

ECTS-Breakdown:

25 h  Lecure+ Exercise
25 h  Preparation of exercises
23 h  Preparation for exam
  2 h  Written exam
------
75 h  = 3 ECTS

 

Lecturers

Institute

Course dates

DayTimeDateLocationDescription
Tue16:00 - 18:0018.10.2016 - 24.01.2017EI 6 Eckert HS Computational Semantics
Computational Semantics - Single appointments
DayDateTimeLocationDescription
Tue18.10.201616:00 - 18:00EI 6 Eckert HS Computational Semantics
Tue25.10.201616:00 - 18:00EI 6 Eckert HS Computational Semantics
Tue08.11.201616:00 - 18:00EI 6 Eckert HS Computational Semantics
Tue22.11.201616:00 - 18:00EI 6 Eckert HS Computational Semantics
Tue29.11.201616:00 - 18:00EI 6 Eckert HS Computational Semantics
Tue06.12.201616:00 - 18:00EI 6 Eckert HS Computational Semantics
Tue13.12.201616:00 - 18:00EI 6 Eckert HS Computational Semantics
Tue10.01.201716:00 - 18:00EI 6 Eckert HS Computational Semantics
Tue17.01.201716:00 - 18:00EI 6 Eckert HS Computational Semantics
Tue24.01.201716:00 - 18:00EI 6 Eckert HS Computational Semantics
Course is held blocked

Examination modalities

Oral exam.

Course registration

Begin End Deregistration end
01.10.2016 09:00 31.10.2016 17:00 20.10.2016 17:00

Curricula

Study CodeObligationSemesterPrecon.Info
066 931 Logic and Computation Mandatory elective
066 937 Software Engineering & Internet Computing Mandatory elective

Literature

Patrick Blackburn, Johan Bos, Representation and Inference for Natural Language. A First Course in Computational Semantics, CSLI, 2005

Chris Manning, Hinrich Schütze, Foundations of Statistical Natural Language Processing, MIT Press, 1999

 

Previous knowledge

  • Knowledge of first-order logic

  • Basic knowledge in logic programming

Language

English