Linguistic typology is the study of the range of variation in structure among human languages and the constraints on that variation. This seminar will look at the relationship between linguistic typology and computational linguistics from two directions, considering on the one hand how computational approaches are used in linguistic typology and on the other how linguistic typology can inform work in computational linguistics/natural language processing.
Note: To request academic accommodations due to a disability, please contact Disabled Student Services, 448 Schmitz, 206-543-8924 (V/TTY). If you have a letter from Disabled Student Services indicating that you have a disability which requires academic accommodations, please present the letter to the instructor so we can discuss the accommodations you might need in this class.
NB: I will be out of town for the first
class meeting, so we will begin on 4/6. There will be a make-up
class meeting scheduled for later in the quarter. Because we
are beginning in the second week, students will be expected to
prepare the assigned reading ahead of the first actual class meeting.
| Date | Topic | Reading | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3/31 | No class: Instructor out of town. | ||
| 4/7 | Introduction, organization What is Typology? Why should computational linguists care? |
Bickel 2007, Nichols 2007, Bender 2009 | |
| 4/14 | Typological databases (Autotyp, WALS) | WALS (Presentation guidelines);
Bickel and Nichols 2002 (Churng) |
KWLH: K and W due |
| 4/21 | Morphological typology and practical applications | Pirkola 2001 (Hartleben), Kirchhoff and Yang 2005 (Saleem), Alexandrescu and Kirchhoff 2006 (Saleem) | |
| 4/28 | ODIN, RiPLeS | Lewis 2006 (Jinguji), Lewis and Xia 2008 (Goodman), Lewis and Xia 2009 (Jinguji) | |
| 5/5 | Surrey Features Project, GOLD | Corbett 2009 (Galperina-Radu), Kibort 2008 (Galperina-Radu), Farrar ms (Evans) | Project/paper plan |
| 5/12 | LINFER, TypTex | Bakker ms (Dougherty), Folch et al 2000 (Dougherty) | |
| 5/19 | Bayesian Typology | Daumé III and Campbell 2007 (Kane), Daumé III 2009 (Goodman) | |
| 5/26 | Grammar Matrix Libraries; Course evals | Drellishak forthcoming, Chs 1-3 and 7 (Kane, Churng) | Project interim results or paper draft |
| Make-up class meeting | Project/paper presentations | ||
| 6/2 | Project/paper presentations | KWLH papers due | |
| 6/10 | Final papers/projects due 5pm |
Papers that are available online will be linked to directly. Others will be uploaded to our e-reserves page.