Formal Languages and Parsing (Master S1 Class)

Basic information

Description

This course presents the theory of formal languages, from both a mathematical and a linguistic point of view. One objective of this course is to study the complexity of natural language syntax. The other major goal of this course is to present the theoretical basis of the syntactic parsing of formal and natural languages.
Relevant concepts: context-free grammar, the Chomsky(–Schützenberger) hierarchy, grammar-based parsing, classifier-based parsing.

Prerequisites

Programming skills in Python. Basic knowledge in set theory.

Learning outcomes

On successful completion of this course, students should be able to:

  • master the basics of formal language theory,
  • understand how formal language theory can be applied to study the complexity natural language syntax,
  • master the basics of syntactic parsing, and the challenge of natural language parsing.