| Meeting time | MWF 12-1, CAS 330 |
| Instructor | Paul Hagstrom |
| hagstrom@bu.edu | |
| Phone | (617) 353-6220 |
| Office | 621 Commonwealth Ave., Rm. 105 |
| Office Hours | M 4-5; WF 3-4 (and by appointment) |
Prerequisite: CAS LX250 (Introduction to Linguistics), or consent of instructor.
Course Description: Introduction to computational techniques to explore linguistic models and test empirical claims. Serves as an introduction to programming, algorithms, and data structures, focused on modern applications to NLP. Topics include tagging and classification, parsing models, meaning representation, and information extraction.
Students completing this course will:
Readings. There will be readings for each class session. All readings mentioned on the schedule are required, and should be completed by the beginning of class. Students registered for GRS LX 690 will have additional readings.
Attendance and participation. Regular attendance is required, and participation in classroom discussions is expected.
Homework. There will be homework assignments on roughly a weekly schedule. Students registered for GRS LX 690 will have generally somewhat longer, more elaborate assignments.
Exams. There will be two exams, one a midterm, at about the middle of the term, and one a final, at the end of the semester. The final will be a take-home project.
Late assignments. Late assignments will not be accepted without prior arrangement.
We live in an electronic age. You (unlike me) have always lived in an electronic age. You are expected to be reachable via your BU email address. The central communication center for the course is the course blog. Announcements, notes on readings, homework errata, and other information will be posted there on a regular basis, and things that are posted there will be assumed to have been communicated. Homework assignments can be sent (whenever feasible, and unless otherwise indicated) by email, or handed in on paper. It is your responsibility to ensure that electronically submitted material is in a readable format—if there is a question (for example, if you use a special font or an obscure word processor), send it early for verification. Unreadable submissions do not count as having been handed in.
The textbook for the course is Steven Bird, Ewan Klein, and Edward Loper (2016). Natural Language Processing with Python (Python 3, NLTK 3 version). Other readings may be assigned from time to time.
| Homework (lowest dropped) | 50% |
| Midterm exam | 15% |
| Final exam | 20% |
| Regular attendance, participation | 15% |
It is essential that you read and adhere to the CAS Student Academic Conduct Code. Graduate students must also follow the policies of the GRS Academic Conduct code.