Syllabus --- Natural Languages

"Natural Language Processing for Prolog Programmers"
- by Michael A. Covington
- published by Prentice Hall
- ISBN: 0-13-629213-5
Recommended text (on English grammar) "The Deluxe Transitive Vampire"
- by Elizabeth Gordon
- published by Pantheon Books
- ISBN 0-679-41860-1

This course studies how one develops software to parse and interpret human language (as opposed to computer languages). We will focus on the English language and will use PROLOG as the programming language of choice. There will be a review of PROLOG and English grammar (the book "The Deluxe Transitive Vampire" might be helpful.

There will be a term project of the student's choice. Please present a proposal for this by the third week.

There will also be two hour-long exams.

Graduate students will be required to read a research paper and give a 10 minute presentation on it at the end of the semester:
Sign up sheet for presentations

Prolog Interpreters for Microcomputers
IBM Compatibles	SWI Prolog for Windows
Macintosh	Open Prolog
Sun Systems	sicstus

We also have SISCTUS prolog available on our Sun systems. Programming may be done using any of these Prologs or another of the student's choice.

Carnegie-Mellon Natural Languages Page

The Dictionaries Page (for translations between languages)

Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar

Justin R. Smith

Last modified: Fri Jan 19 08:21:19 EST 2001