Linguistics 580E: Computational Morphology

Course Info

Lecture: Th 3:30-5:50, MGH 254
Texts: Beesley & Karttunen 2003; some selected papers.
Electronic reserves for our course.
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Instructor Info

Emily M. Bender
Office Hours: T 10-12 & By appt
Office: Padelford B-201
Phone: 616-4963
Email: ebender at u

Syllabus

Description

The goal of this course is to design an interface between a grammar development environment (the LKB, Copestake 2002) and a finite-state morphology system (xfst, Beesley & Karttunen 2003) such that the whole is up to the task of handling morphologically complex languages. The ultimate goal is a system that is useful to linguists working on a new language in the field, or on returning from the field. We will study xfst, several hard morphological cases, the relevant portion of the LKB, and XML as it is used in interfaces. Along the way, we will reflect on the research process.

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.

Requirements

Numbers in parentheses represent portion of grade for 3 credit and 2 credit options, respectively.

Leading a discussion of a paper or chapter (15/30) (guidelines, pdf file).
KWLH paper (approx 7 pages) (20/40).
Participation in discussions (15/30).
Term project or paper (50/0).

Schedule of Topics and Assignments (may be updated)

Date	Topic	Reading	Due
9/30	Introduction Montage Slave	Fig 1 Fig 2
10/7	Semitic morphology (Robert) Introduction to `xfst` (David D.)	Goldenberg 1994 B&K Ch 1-2	KWLH papers: Write K and W
10/14	Tonal Morphemes (Ann) `xfst` interface (Laurie)	Hyman & Mtenje 1999, optional: Good 2002 B&K Ch 3
10/21	Guest lecture: Morphological fieldwork The `lexc` language (Bill)	B&K Ch 4
10/28	Nenetz morphology (Anya) Flag diacritics (Duane)	Salminen 1999 B&K Ch 7	Term paper/project topic
11/4	LKB (David G.) Non-concatenative morphotactics (Scott)	Copestake 2002: Chs 4 and 5, plus pages 199-201 B&K Ch 8
11/11	Holiday, no class
11/18	Algorithms for finite-state morphology (Garrett) Guest lecture: Tracy King: `xfst` and XLE	Kaplan & Kay 1994 Kaplan et al 2004
11/25	Holiday, no class		11/24: Term paper outlines/term project specs
12/2	Other approches to Arabic (Jeremy) Design session #1 Course evaluations	Kiraz 1994 Leipzig Glossing Rules
12/9	What linguists want to represent (Matty) Design session #2	Penton et al 2004 Bird, Bow & Hughes 2003	KWLH papers due
12/16			Term papers/projects due, 5pm

Bibliography

Beesley, Kenneth and Lauri Karttunen. 2003. Finite State Morphology. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
Copestake, Ann. 2002. Implementing Typed Feature Structure Grammars. Stanford: CSLI Publication.
Good, Jeff. 2002. "Tonal morphology in a creole: High-tone raising in Saramaccan serial verb constructions". In Booij, Geert and Jaap van Marle (eds), Yearbook of Morphology 2002. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Goldenberg, Gideon. 1994. "Principles of Semitic Word-Structure". In G. Goldenberg and Sh. Raz (eds), Semitic and Cushitic Studies. pp.29-64. Reprinted in Goldenberg, Gideon. 1998. Studies in Semitic Languages. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University.
Hyman, Larry M. and Al Mtenje. 1999. "Prosodic Morphology and Tone: the Case of Chichewa". In Kager, van der Hulst and Zonneveld (eds), The Prosody-Morphology Interface. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Kaplan, Ronald M. and Martin Kay. 1994. "Regular Models of Phonological Rule Systems". Computational Linguistics 20(3):331-378.
Kaplan, Ronald M., John T. Maxwell III, Tracy Holloway King and Richard Crouch. 2004. "Integrating Finite-state Technology with Deep LFG Grammars." Proceedings of the Workshp on Combining Shallow and Deep Processing for NLP (ESSLLI 2004).
Kiraz, George Anton. 1994. "Multi-tape Two-level Morphology: A Case Study in Semitic Non-Linear Morphology". Proceedings of COLING 1994. pp.180-186.
Penton, David, Catherine Bow, Steven Bird and Baden Hughes. 2004. Toward a General Model for Linguistic Paradigms. Proceedings of the EMELD Language Digitization Project 2004 Workshop on Linguistic Databases and Best Practice.
Bird, S., Bow, B. & Hughes, B. 2003. Towards a General Model of Interlinear Text Proceedings of EMELD 2003.