Course Descriptions

LING 100A Introduction to Linguistics
Usually offered every fall.     Course website.    Instructor: Sophia Malamud.

Ling 100 is a general introduction to the nature, history, and use of human language, speech, and writing. It is appropriate for any undergraduate or graduate student interested in language or its use. Topics include:
* sounds, forms, and meanings in the world's languages
* the biological basis of human language and other animal communication systems
* relations of language to cognition, communication, and social organization
* spoken versus written language
* the reconstruction of linguistic history and relatedness among languages
* dialect variation and language standardization
* language learning by children
* the neurology of language and language disorders.
         The course has no prerequisites.                   Back to top

LING 110A Phonology
Usually offered every other spring.     Instructor: Henrietta Hung.

An introduction to generative phonology, the theory of natural language sound systems. Includes discussion of
* articulatory phonetics
* distinctive feature theory
* the concept of a "natural class"
* morphology and the nature of morphophonemics
* universal properties of the rules that relate morphophonemic and phonetic representations.
         Prerequisite: LING 100a                   Back to top

LING 112A Sociolinguistics
Offered occasionally.     Instructor: Henrietta Hung.

Human language viewed from a social and historical perspective. Students acquire tools of linguistic analysis through interactive computer programs, covering phonetics, phonology and morphology, in English and other languages. These techniques are then used to trace social differences in the use of language, and changing patterns of social stratification. The course focuses on linguistic changes in progress in American society, in both mainstream and minority communities, and the social problems associated with them. Students will engage in field projects to search for the social correlates of linguistic behavior, and use quantitative methods to analyze the results.
         This course has no prerequisites                   Back to top

LING 112A Sociolinguistics
Offered occasionally.     Instructor: Henrietta Hung.

Human language viewed from a social and historical perspective. Students acquire tools of linguistic analysis through interactive computer programs, covering phonetics, phonology and morphology, in English and other languages. These techniques are then used to trace social differences in the use of language, and changing patterns of social stratification. The course focuses on linguistic changes in progress in American society, in both mainstream and minority communities, and the social problems associated with them. Students will engage in field projects to search for the social correlates of linguistic behavior, and use quantitative methods to analyze the results.
         This course has no prerequisites                   Back to top

COSI 114B Topics in Computational Linguistics [CL]
Usually offered every spring.

Provides a fundamental understanding of the problems in natural language understanding by computers, and the theory and practice of current computational linguistic systems. Of interest to students of artificial intelligence, algorithms, and the computational processes of comprehension and understanding.
         Prerequisites: COSI 21b or 29a; COSI 35a or COSI 101a.                   Back to top

LING 115A Morphology
Usually offered every second year. Instructor: Lotus Goldberg

An exploration of word structure and its analysis. Topics include the lexicon and lexical entries, word-headedness, argument structure and other issues in morphosyntax, derivational and inflectional morphology, compounds, morphophonology, and non-Indo-European processes like infixing, reduplication, and Semitic root-and-pattern morphology.
         Prerequisite: LING 100a. May not be repeated for credit by students who took LING 190b in spring 2008.                   Back to top

LING 120B Syntactic Theory
Usually offered every spring. Instructor: Lotus Goldberg

Extends the syntactic framework developed in the introductory course through the study of such problems as the complement system, the lexicon, and constraints, with emphasis on their relevance to universal grammar.
         Prerequisite: LING 100a                   Back to top

LING 125B Universal Grammar
Usually offered every fall. Instructor: Lotus Goldberg

Advanced topics in the theory of language typology and universal grammar. May be repeated for credit with permission of instructor.
         Prerequisite: LING 100a or permission of the instructor.                   Back to top

LING 128A Investigations in an Unfamiliar Language
Usually offered every other fall. Instructor: Henrietta Hung

Using a native speaker of an unfamiliar language (such as Turkish or Amharic) as a source of data, the class will investigate the structure of the language and compare it with the structure of English and other familiar languages. May be repeated for credit.
         Prerequisite: ANTH 61b or LING 100a. May not be repeated for credit by students who have taken ANTH 125b in previous semesters.                   Back to top

LING 130a Semantics: The Structure of Concepts
Usually offered every fall.     Course website.    Instructor: Sophia Malamud.

Explores the semantic structure of language in terms of current linguistic theory. This course introduces the components and formal mechanisms underlying meaning in human language and uses them as a window on the human mind, its psychological development and adult cognitive processes. Questions we address include
* What kinds of concepts can things like a, no, un, or a determiner encode?
* What is the reference of terms for non-existant things, like a unicorn, or the perfect person?
* What are the conceptual parts that make up word meanings?
* How are these "atoms" of meaning combined in a mathematical procedure to yield the meaning of sentences?
* What is truth, and how does it relate to linguistic meaning? Formal tools from Set Theory and Predicate Logic will be introduced and applied both to the linguistic and to the cognitive characterization of meaning.
         Prerequisite: LING 100a or permission of the instructor.                   Back to top

CS 131b Algorithms for Computational Linguistics [CL]

This is an introductory graduate level course on the computational properties of natural languages and the fundamental algorithms for processing natural languages. The course will provide an in-depth presentation of the major algorithms used in NLP, including Lexical, Morphological, Syntactic and Semantic analysis, with the primary focus on parsing algorithms and their analysis. The course is a recommended first-semester class for both the MLT and PhD in Language Technologies programs, and a required class for some tracks of the Computational Linguistics MA.
The main objectives of the course are the following:
* Develop a thorough understanding of the principles and formal methods used in the design and analysis of language processing algorithms.
* Provide an in-depth presentation of the major algorithms used in NLP, including Lexical, Morphological, Syntactic, and Semantic analysis, with the primary focus on parsing algorithms and their analysis.                   Back to top

CS 134a Statistical Methods in Natural Language Processing [CL]

This course introduces some of the central themes and techniques that have emerged in statistical methods for language technologies and natural language processing. Topics include
* the source-channel paradigm from information theory
* predictive language models
* hidden Markov models
* the EM algorithm in its many guises
* maximum entropy methods
* classification and regression techniques.
Selected case studies involving technologies such as word and document clustering, sense disambiguation, parsing, text classification, and machine translation are presented. The material draws upon machine learning, statistics, and information theory, but only an elementary knowledge of probability is a prerequisite for the course.                   Back to top

Ling 135a / CS 135a Computational Semantics

Computational semantics is the study of how to automate the process of constructing and reasoning with meaning representations of natural language expressions. Some traditional topics we will cover include:
* construction of meaning representations
* semantic underspecification
* anaphora resolution
* presupposition projection
* quantifier scope resolution.
Computational semantics has points of contact with the areas of lexical semantics (word sense disambiguation and role labelling), discourse semantics, formal semantics, knowledge representation and automated reasoning.
         Ling 130a or Ling140a are recommended, but not required.                   Back to top

LING 140a Discourse and Pragmatics
Usually offered every spring.     Course website.    Instructor: Sophia Malamud.

This course studies the architecture of conversation and text.
*What's wrong with the Mad Hatter?* - This and other crucial questions will be raised (and some even answered!) in this course on language meaning in context. We'll be exploring how sentences are put together into texts and conversations, how speakers and hearers exploit each other's expectations and cooperate (or fail to cooperate) in the process of communication, and how speakers of different languages manage their conversations. Assuming a theory of sentence-level linguistic competence, what phenomena are still to be accounted for in the explication of language knowledge? The class explores topics in language use in context, including anaphora, deixis, implicature, speech acts, information packaging, and pragmatics of dialogue.
         This course has no prerequisites.                   Back to top

Ling 160b Mathematical Foundations for Linguistics

This course introduces students to fundamental mathematical concepts needed for advanced work in linguistics. Topics include:
* set theory
* theory of relations
* fundamentals of logic
* formal systems
* lambda calculus
* formal language theory
* theory of automata
* basics of probability and statistics
* game and decision theory.
         This course has no pre-requisites.                   Back to top

LING 190b Topics in Linguistics --- Fall 2009: Quantitative Techniques in Corpus Linguistics

Advances in technology in recent years have made it possible to collect and analyze extremely large bodies of text ("corpora") at a level of detail out of reach to previous generations. For both linguists and computer scientists, the development of the World Wide Web and other natural language resources have heightened the importance of techniques for dealing with very large texts. In this course, we will examine the way computerized processing and manual annotation of large bodies of text enables both the development of practical applications for natural language processing tasks and the theoretical inquiry into language structure.

In particular, the course will focus on:

• Designing principles, linguistic models, annotation procedures, and evaluation methods for linguistically annotated corpora
• In-depth examination of the major linguistic annotation projects that have shaped the field of Natural Language Processing (NLP)
• Issues and solutions involved in assembling large corpora of unannotated text for use in specific NLP applications

Note that, despite being listed this year as a linguistics course, this course is in fact an advanced computational linguistics course for students with background in computer science.

This course counts as an elective for computer science students. All interested students are welcome to come in to learn more!

LING 197a Language Acquisition and Development
Usually offered every spring, or every other spring.     Course website.    Instructor: Sophia Malamud.

The central problem of language acquisition is to explain what makes this formidable task possible. Theories of language acquisition are studied, and conclusions are based on recent research in the development of syntax, semantics, and phonology. The overall goal is to arrive at a coherent picture of the language learning process.
         Prerequisite: LING 100a or permission of the instructor.                   Back to top

CS 216A Topics in Natural Language Processing [CL]

Reviews recent trends in computational approaches to linguistics, semantics, knowledge representation for language, and issues in parsing and inferences. Mr. Pustejovksy

CS 217a Natural Language Processing Systems [CL]

Introduction to computational approaches to linguistics, semantics, knowledge representation for language, and issues in parsing and inferences.                   Back to top

Electives and Cross-Listed Courses

Electives often available in the fall:

ANTH 61B Language in American Life

ANTH 139B Language, Ethnicity, and Nationalism

COSI 21B Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs

COSI 101B Fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence

ENG 11A Introduction to Literary Method

NPSY 22B Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience                   

PHIL 6A Introduction to Symbolic Logic

PHIL 36B Mind, Meaning and Language

PHIL 137A Innateness

PHIL 140A Logic and Language

PHIL 145B Topics in the Philosophy of Language

Electives often available in the spring:

ANTH 186B Linguistic Anthropology

COSI 30A Introduction to the Theory of Computation

ENG 11A Introduction to Literary Method

HBRW 167B The Revival of Modern Hebrew

NPSY 199A Human Neuropsychology

PHIL 6A Introduction to Symbolic Logic

PHIL 37A Philosophy of Language

PHIL 39B Philosophy of Mind                   Back to top