Natural Language Processing - 605.646

This course surveys the principal difficulties of working with written language data, the fundamental techniques that are used in processing natural language, and the core applications of NLP technology. Topics covered in the course include language modeling, text classification, labeling sequential data (tagging), parsing, information extraction, question answering, machine translation, and semantics. The dominant paradigm in contemporary NLP uses supervised machine learning to train models based on either probability theory or deep neural networks. Both formalisms will be covered. A practical approach is emphasized in the course, and students will write programs and use open source toolkits to solve a variety of problems. Course prerequisite(s): There are no formal prerequisite courses, although having taken any of EN.605.649 Introduction to Machine Learning, EN.605.744 Information Retrieval, or EN.605.645 Artificial Intelligence is helpful. Course note(s): A working knowledge of Python is assumed. While some of the assigned exercises can be done in any programming language, we will sometimes provide example code in Python, and many of the labs are best solved in Python.Course note(s): A working knowledge of Python is assumed. While some of the assigned exercises can be done in any programming language, we will sometimes provide example code in Python, and many of the labs are best solved in Python.