INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE DAY 1 LING 3820 & 6820 Natural Language Processing Harry Howard Tulane University

Objectives 25-Aug-2014NLP, Prof. Howard, Tulane University 2  This course shows you how to make a computer perform various useful tasks with natural language.  Through it you'll learn  some linguistics,  some algorithms,  some statistics,  and some computer programming in Python.  I do not require that you know anything in particular about these areas beforehand.

Objectives, cont. 25-Aug-2014NLP, Prof. Howard, Tulane University 3  Hopefully you'll finish the semester with an appreciation for the intricacies of modeling human languages,  plus some practical knowledge about solving linguistic problems, such as techniques for  filtering junk ,  automatically discovering different meanings of the word "run",  efficiently encoding spelling rules,  tagging words according to their part of speech,  parsing English sentences,  and automatically translating from one language to another,  among other things.

Objectives, cont. 25-Aug-2014NLP, Prof. Howard, Tulane University 4  Our work will be a combination of learning new algorithms, discussing linguistics, and programming useful systems that operate on real data.  It is great training if you are interested in doing natural language processing work in industry, either in a research lab or in a startup.

Why should you care? 25-Aug-2014NLP, Prof. Howard, Tulane University 5  Trends  An enormous amount of information is now available in machine readable form as natural language text.  Conversational agents (automated voices that answer the phone) are becoming an important form of human- computer communication.  Much of human-human communication is now mediated by computers.

Intended audience 25-Aug-2014NLP, Prof. Howard, Tulane University 6  Students of  linguistics,  cognitive science,  psychology,  mathematics,  and any other discipline with an interest in how to process natural language by computer.

Outcomes 25-Aug-2014NLP, Prof. Howard, Tulane University 7  For you to demonstrate how well you have attained the objectives, you will perform the following tasks:  Take a quiz or turn in a project almost every week, usually on Monday. [11-1 * 7.5% = 75%] No quiz/project can be accepted late. Even though these look like a lot of small grades, missing just one lowers your final grade almost an entire letter, as an unfortunate few of my students have found out the hard way. If you know ahead of time that you will miss a quiz/project, send me an e- mail beforehand, and I will excuse you with no penalty.  Present a final project to the class on the final exam day (Dec 8) and turn in a report of your project within two days. [25%] This may be a group effort, but the entire group will receive the same grade.

Experimento de EEG (hasta 3% adicional) 25-Aug NLP, Prof. Howard, Tulane University

Participation 25-Aug-2014NLP, Prof. Howard, Tulane University 9  Note that there is no credit for class participation,  but I will change any high Y- into a low X+ if I notice you participating in class.  Why there is no grade for class particiaption  I will record every class as an mp3 and post it to the course website.  I will post my PowerPoint presentation to the course website after every class.

Prerequisites 25-Aug-2014NLP, Prof. Howard, Tulane University 10  There aren't any.  I do not take anything for granted and so will explain all background information, or at least suggest sources where you can find it on your own.

Code of academic integrity 25-Aug-2014NLP, Prof. Howard, Tulane University 11 “The integrity of Newcomb-Tulane College is based on the absolute honesty of the entire community in all academic endeavors. As part of the Tulane University community, students have certain responsibilities regarding work that forms the basis for the evaluation of their academic achievement. Students are expected to be familiar with these responsibilities at all times. No member of the university community should tolerate any form of academic dishonesty, because the scholarly community of the university depends on the willingness of both instructors and students to uphold the Code of Academic Conduct. When a violation of the Code of Academic Conduct is observed it is the duty of every member of the academic community who has evidence of the violation to take action. Students should take steps to uphold the code by reporting any suspected offense to the instructor or the associate dean of the college. Students should under no circumstances tolerate any form of academic dishonesty.” For further information, point your browser at

Students with disabilities 25-Aug-2014NLP, Prof. Howard, Tulane University 12  Students with disabilities who need academic accommodation should:  Contact and register with the Office of Disability Services (ODS). For more information, visit the ODS website at website  Bring official notice to me from the ODS indicating that you need academic accommodation. This should be done within the first week of class.

Electronic communications 25-Aug-2014NLP, Prof. Howard, Tulane University 13   I will send you on a regular basis – you must check your on a regular basis!  If you want to use a non-Tulane address, me a message to that effect from the address.

Textbook 25-Aug NLP, Prof. Howard, Tulane University  Free at 

Natural Language Toolkit 25-Aug-2014NLP, Prof. Howard, Tulane University 15  The choice of Python as programming language for the course was motivated by the availability of the excellent tools in the Natural Language Toolkit ( which are programmed in Python.  As well as the just-published textbook that goes with it.  The authors of the NLTK choose Python, in turn, for the ease with which it lets you create NLP applications.

Schedule of readings and class preparation 25-Aug-2014NLP, Prof. Howard, Tulane University 16  You should come to class having completed the assignment for that day listed in the schedule.  We will spend the class going over the exercises in the assignment, answering questions that may have come up in the readings, and perhaps doing new exercises.

Computers 25-Aug-2014NLP, Prof. Howard, Tulane University 17  If you have a laptop, you will probably want to bring it to class.

Final exam day Mon, Dec 8, morning 25-Aug-2014NLP, Prof. Howard, Tulane University 18  There is no final exam, but you must present your final project to the class on the final exam day.  You CANNOT leave town before then!  Tell your parents NOW!  You are hereby warned.  Do not tell me at the end of the semester that your parents bought you a ticket home without knowing.

What is the name of this course? 25-Aug-2014NLP, Prof. Howard, Tulane University 19

Questions? 25-Aug-2014NLP, Prof. Howard, Tulane University 20 ?

Who we are 25-Aug NLP, Prof. Howard, Tulane University

Me 25-Aug-2014NLP, Prof. Howard, Tulane University 22  Prof. Harry Howard  howard at tulane dot edu  (voice mail 24 hours a day)  Newcomb Hall 322-D  Office hours: MW 1-2, T 4-5 and by appointment

Who are you? 25-Aug-2014NLP, Prof. Howard, Tulane University 23  Ask the person sitting next to you …  what his/her name is,  where he/she is from,  what his/her major is,  what he/she knows about computer programming or linguistics…  and be ready to report what you learned back to the class.

Download and install Python and NLTK See info at > Downloadhttp:// Next time