Aim: To give the student an overview of computational linguistics and hands on experience with state-of-the-art natural language processing technology.  

Tasks: Students will incrementally develop a working dialog system that includes the following components: language analyzer, automated reasoner, language generator, and a dialog manager.  

Readings: The main text used for this course is Jurafsky & Martin (2000) (J&M), available in English and Chinese. Please see the text website. When relevant, we will offer supplementary articles usually available on-line. See the bibliography and/or the schedule for a list of readings.

Prerequisites: a good knowledge of Java and XML