Taaltheorie en Taalverwerking

Linguistics and Language Processing

Studiewijzer 2025/2026

Globale inhoud

Our ability to use natural language to communicate with each other and to record information is one of the main features that makes us intelligent. However, while we use language effortlessly in our everyday life, computers have a hard time processing natural languages such as English or Dutch. Computational linguistics is a subfield of artificial intelligence at the interface of linguistic theory and computer science, which aims at endowing computers with the ability to process natural language. The ultimate goal is to develop artificial agents that can automatically acquire information from text or that can communicate with humans via intelligent interfaces or in human-robot interaction.

This course introduces students to some of the core topics in computational linguistics and natural language processing. We will focus on foundational aspects, paying special attention to rule-based methods. The course provides background for the second-year course Natuurlijke Taalmodellen en Interfaces, which focuses on data-driven probabilistic methods. 

The course covers the following key topics in language processing at an introductory level:

• formal languages and automata,
• syntactic structure and syntactic parsing,
• logic-based compositional semantics, and
• word meaning and semantic similarity.

Studiemateriaal

Literatuur

• Daniel Jurafsky and James H. Martin, Speech and Language Processing (2nd Edition), Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009. Only around seven or eight chapters will be covered in this course. 

   

  Note: You do not need to buy the book. Indeed, you can find the 3rd edition available online for free.

Syllabus

• - Automata, Transducers, and Morphology

  - Formal Grammars and Syntax

  - From Parsing to Computational Semantics

  - Compositional Semantics 

  - Lexical Semantics 

  - Distributional Semantics and Information Retrieval

Overig

• Other online materials will be pointed out during the course. Slides will be available on Canvas after each lecture.

Leerdoelen

• The student can analyze the structure and the meaning of natural language expressions
• The student can use the basic concepts of computational linguistics to define an NLP problem formally
• The student can apply computational processing to parse syntax, semantics, and morphology
• The student can describe the computational challenges of parsing processes
• The student can use common NLP libraries from a general programming language

Onderwijsvormen

• Hoorcollege
• Werkcollege
• Laptopcollege

The course consists of lectures (hoorcolleges) where the theoretical material is explained and discussed, and practical sessions (werkcolleges and laptopcolleges). In the practical sessions, students will work in pairs on exercises related to the content introduced during the lectures.

Verdeling leeractiviteiten

Aanwezigheid

Aanwezigheidseisen opleiding (OER-B Artikel B-4.10):

• Voor sommige studieonderdelen geldt een aanwezigheidsplicht. Indien er een aanwezigheidsplicht geldt, dan staat dit aangegeven in de studiegids. De onderbouwing voor, en invulling van, deze aanwezigheidsplicht kan per vak verschillen, en is opgenomen in de studiewijzer. Wanneer studenten niet voldoen aan deze aanwezigheidsplicht kan het onderdeel niet met een voldoende worden afgerond.
  

Aanvullende eisen voor dit vak:

Attendance is not mandatory but highly encouraged. Our course's activities are interconnected, and they are designed under the premise that students engage actively both with self-study and with live sessions. 

Toetsing

The grade will be 20% homework and 80% exams (weighted average of midterm and final). Both components (exam and homework) are graded on a scale from 0 to 10.

It is necessary, though not sufficient, to obtain a grade of at least 5.0 on the exam component to pass the course. If you receive a grade below 5.0 on this component, or if the weighted average of your homework and exam grades is insufficient to pass the course, you are eligible to resit the exam component. In that case, the resit grade fully replaces the original exam grade.

Note that the grade of the resit (hertentamen) will, in any case, replace the combined results of the two exams, whatever your original results may have been.

Inzage toetsing

Normally, graded exams will be available on a platform such as ANS, which supports feedback and discussion.

Opdrachten

The homework component of the grade will be calculated as the weighted average of several weekly homework assignments. These assignments will be completed and submitted in pairs. Students will receive feedback from their TAs on these assignments during werkcolleges and laptopcolleges.

Fraude en plagiaat

Dit vak hanteert de algemene 'Fraude- en plagiaatregeling' van de UvA. Hier wordt nauwkeurig op gecontroleerd. Bij verdenking van fraude of plagiaat wordt de examencommissie van de opleiding ingeschakeld. Zie de Fraude- en plagiaatregeling van de UvA: http://student.uva.nl

Weekplanning

Honoursinformatie

Honours students can contact Frank Wildenburg (TA coordinator) and request to be assigned to another group in case the one assigned by default overlaps with other activities. 

Aanvullende informatie

Basic knowledge of Python and first-order logic will be taken for granted; no other previous knowledge of linguistics is required.

Contactinformatie

Coördinator

• dr. S. Pezzelle

The course will be taught by Dr. S. Pezzelle, Dr. Katrin Schulz, and Dr. David Graus.

The teaching assistants (TAs) should be the first point of contact for day-to-day issues related to the course. For unusual or extreme circumstances, e.g., exam time conflicts, contact the TA coordinator. Only for content-related questions, contact the lecturers and/or the course coordinator.