Linguistics 384: Language and Computers

(Spring 2007)

Course goals: In the past decade, the widening use of computers has had a profound influence on the way ordinary people communicate, search and store information. For the overwhelming majority of people and situations, the natural vehicle for such information is natural language. Text and to a lesser extent speech are crucial encoding formats for the information revolution.

In this course, you will be given insight into the fundamentals of how computers are used to represent, process and organize textual and spoken information, as well as tips on how to effectively integrate this knowledge into working practice. We will cover the theory and practice of human language technology. Topics include text encoding, speech processing, search technology, document classification, tools for writing support, machine translation and computer aided language learning.

Gec: The course satisfies the GEC category 2B (Mathematical and Logical Analysis). It does so by using natural language systems to motivate students to exercise and develop a range of basic skills in formal and computational analysis. The course philosophy is to ground abstract concepts in real world examples. We introduce strings, regular expressions, finite-state and context-free grammars, as well as algorithms defined over these structures and techniques for probing and evaluating systems that rely on these algorithms. The course goes beyond merely subjective evaluation of systems, emphasizing analysis and reasoning to draw and argue for valid conclusions about the design, capabilities and behavior of natural language systems.

Instructor: Arantxa Martín-Lozano

Office: 204 Oxley Hall
Email: lozano@ling.ohio-state.edu
Telephone: 688-3108
Office hours: Mondays and Wednesdays 4:30--5:30pm (or by appointment)

Course Coordinator: If you have any questions about this course you can contact Dr. Hope Dawson, TA coordinator of the Linguistics Department. E-mail: hdawson@ling.ohio-state.edu. Office: Oxley Hall 222A.

Course meets:

Monday: 11:30-1:18 in 185 Mendenhall Laboratory;
Wednesday: 11:30-1:18 in 270 Journalism Building;

Carmen: We'll be using the Carmen course management tool for the course, which is accessible at http://carmen.osu.edu. You'll use it to

locate/read the updated syllabus, slides, handouts, reading material, etc.
read announcements about the class
do the on-line quizzes
communicate with other members of the class
provide feedback to the instructor using the surveys tool

Note that email from Carmen is sent to the official email addresses (Name.Number@osu.edu) of the students enrolled in the class and the instructor. You should read email sent to your official osu account on a daily basis.

Carmen and privacy: Be aware that the Carmen system as it is set up at OSU keeps detailed logs of your interaction with the system, e.g., when you log in, how long you take to complete which question of the quiz, etc.

Readings: There is no textbook for this course (the topic is quite new, at OSU and elsewhere). There will be some readings assigned periodically throughout the course.

I will distribute slides in class for each unit. These will also be available on the web after the class in which they are first distributed. These slides are only a skeleton of the material covered; they cannot replace actually being in class. In my experience, students who actively participate in class enjoy the course more and get much better grades than those who don't.

Course requirements: The basic requirement is regular attendance in class and active participation. There will be eight online quizzes, to ensure the material covered in class is mastered. The midterm will consist of the material covered in the first half of the class, and the final will cover the content of the second half of the class.

Grading: Grades will be based on attendance, participation in classroom discussion and group work, quizzes, a midterm exam, and the final examination, using the following scheme:

Attendance	10%
Participation	5%
Quizzes	45%
Midterm	20%
Final	20%

Given that homeworks, quizzes, and exams address the material covered in class, attendance is essential for doing well in this class. Full credit for attendance will be given to students who miss no more than two classes. Each additional absence will result in a reduction of the attendance grade in a 25%. Thus, a student missing no more than two classes will get 10/10 for attendance, a student missing three classes will get 7.5/10, a student missing four classes will get 5/10, etc. Requests to excuse absences will only be considered upon presentation by the student of official documentation, typically from a doctor or court of law. Whenever possible the official documentation should be submitted before the day when the student will be missing class. Missing a substantive part of a class will be considered an absence.
Full credit for participation will be given to students who ask questions, participate in discussions and make an evident effort to do their best in all in-class activities. Students will be expected to create and maintain a productive working atmosphere.
Quizzes are administered on-line through Carmen (http://carmen.osu.edu). After the deadline for doing the quiz has elapsed, you won't be able to access it. You will generally have a week to complete a quiz, so do not put it off to the last minute! Quizzes are open book, so you should view them as an opportunity for reviewing the material covered, based on the handouts and in-class activities. If you have any technical problems submitting a quiz you need to send me an e-mail with the description of the problem before the deadline when the quiz is due.

Note: I will not remind you when you have a quiz due. It is your responsibility to keep up with the syllabus/calendar of the course.
If you feel that I have graded anything incorrectly or improperly, please contact me outside of class. I will be happy to discuss your concerns.
The OSU Standard Grading Scheme is used, which maps percentages to grades in the following way:

B+ 87--89 C+ 77--79 D+ 67--69 E 0--59

A 93--100 B 83--86 C 73--76 D 60--66

A- 90--92 B- 80--82 C- 70--72

Make-up Policy: Since you generally will have a week to take them, there will be no make-ups for quizzes. If you miss the midterm or final, you will have to provide extensive written documentation for your excuse.

Academic Misconduct: To state the obvious, academic dishonesty is not allowed. In accordance to university regulations, any suspected cheating on tests or on other assignments will be reported to the University Committee on Academic Misconduct. The most common form of misconduct is plagiarism. Remember that any time you use the ideas or the materials of another person, you must acknowledge that you have done so in a citation. This includes material that you have found on the Web or given to you by another student by email, telephone, in person, etc. The University provides guidelines for research on the Web at http://gateway.lib.ohio-state.edu/tutor/ and you can find the Student Code of Conduct at http://studentaffairs.osu.edu/resource_csc.asp

Non-academic Misconduct: Everyone in the class will be expected to be respectful of others. Behaviours contributing to the creation of a hostile working atmosphere will be reported to student judicial affairs.

Class etiquette: For the best interest of everyone in the class, please follow the following principles of class etiquette.

Participate: share experiences, ask questions, express your opinions. Ask me to provide more information, send me emails or see me during office hours for help, clarification, or recommendations for further research.
Do not read newspapers, materials from other classes, etc. in class. When in the computer lab, only use the computers when I ask you to do a specific activity -- do not read email or browse the web. Do not pack up early. Switch off your cell phone. If for some reason, you must leave early or you have an important call coming in, notify me before class. Don't engage in conversations not related to the class content, since this may disturb other people's work.

Topics:

Storing language on the computer: Text and speech encoding.
Writing systems used for language. Representing text on the computer. Digital representations of speech.
Searching: web, library catalogs, and other language-based databases
What facilities exist for searching for language-based information? Different query languages and what they allow you to do. Differences between specific and general queries. How to evaluate the results of a search.
Classifying documents: Language identification and spam filtering
Techniques for classifying documents. What language(s) are they written in? Are they junk mail? Are statistical techniques better than rule-based ones, or not? When will the techniques fail?
Writer's aids: Spelling and grammar correction
What do so-called ``grammar checkers'' and ``spelling correctors'' do? What do such programs base their advice on? When does it make sense to use such tools and what kind of errors are to be expected?
Machine translation
What do the free internet-based translation services manage to do---and where do they fail? For what purposes can automatic machine translation work reliably? What translation support functions can a computer provide? A closer look at what makes machine translation such a hard task. Is it the grammar, the meaning, the culture, all three, or something else?
Computer-Aided Language Learning
What is involved in learning a foreign language? What role in language learning can computers play: from vocabulary training, via presentation of learning material, to providing feedback on learner errors and progress.

Schedule: The latest version of the schedule is always available from our web page. After the lectures, the titles in the schedule below are linked to the handouts we used (in pdf format).

Week	Month	Date	Day	Topic	Assignments (due before class)
1	March	26	M	Introduction
1	March	28	W	1. Text and speech encoding (9up)
2	April	2	M	1. Text and speech encoding
2	April	4	W	1. Text and speech encoding	Quiz1-Text encoding
3	April	9	M	2. Searching (9up)
3	April	11	W	2. Searching	Quiz2-Speech encoding
4	April	16	M	2. Searching
4	April	18	W	3. Text Classification (Spam filtering) (9up)
5	April	23	M	3. Text classification	Quiz 3 - Searching
5	April	25	W	3. Text classification
6	April	30	M	Review for the Midterm	Quiz 4 - Text Classification
6	May	2	W	MIDTERM (review sheet)
7	May	7	M	4. Writers' Aids (9up)
7	May	9	W	4. Writers' Aids
8	May	14	M	4. Writers' Aids	Quiz 5 - Spell Checkers
8	May	16	W	5. Machine Translation (9up)	Quiz 6 - Grammar Checkers
9	May	21	M	5. Machine Translation
9	May	23	W	5. Machine Translation
10	May	28	M	NO CLASS
10	May	30	W	Review for the Final Print the Review Sheet	QUIZ #7 on Machine Translation due Monday 4th June 10:30pm
11	June	6	W	FINAL EXAM 11:30-1:18, JR 270

Disclaimer: This syllabus is subject to change.

Students with Disabilities: Students who need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact me as soon as possible to discuss the course format, to anticipate needs, and to explore potential accommodations. I rely on the Office of Disability Services for assistance in verifying the need for accommodations and developing accommodation strategies. Students who have not previously contacted the Office for Disability Services are encouraged to do so (292-3307; http://www.ods.ohio-state.edu).

This document was translated from L^AT_EX by H^EV^EA.