Hauptnavigation

NLS-E

Lecture: Natural language systems

14 - 16 x 2 hours lecture
14 - 16 x 2 hours intensive course with exercises

Katharina Morik

The lecture gives an overview of natural language systems. All examples are given within the logic programming paradigm such that students can try out their understanding by programming in Prolog. The basis are the following books: Michael Covington (1994) Natural Language Processing for Prolog Programmers, Prentice Hall. Günther Görz (1995 2nd edition) Einführung in die Künstliche Intelligenz, Addison Wesley. Stephen C. Levinson (1983) Pragmatics, Cambridge Univ. Press

In addition, there is a script.

The lecture covers the following topics:

  1. Introduction
    • what is language: aspects, levels
    • communication
    • architecture of an NLS
    • why Prolog?
  2. Syntax and Lexicon
    • phrase structure
    • parsing in Prolog
    • DCG
    • unification-based grammar
    • features and their properties
    • morphological analysis
  3. Semantics
    • semantic representation language (SRL) and its evaluation
    • predicate logic as SRL
    • Lambda abstraction
  4. Pragmatics
    • deixis
    • presupositions
    • conversational implications
    • speech acts
    • dialog structure
  5. Some NLS for illustration
In addition, there is an intensive course that applies the learned techniques to building a natural language interface of a mobile robot.

German Version