A nontechnical introduction to complexity theory: its strengths, its weaknesses, and how it can be used to study grammars.

A review of recent computational (deep learning) approaches to understanding news and nonfiction stories.

This open access book introduces a general framework that allows natural language researchers to enhance existing competence theories with fully specified performance and processing components. Gradually developing increasingly complex and cognitively realistic competence-performance models, it provides running code for these models and shows how to fit them to real-time experimental data. This computational cognitive modeling approach opens up exciting new directions for research in formal semantics, and linguistics more generally, and offers new ways of (re)connecting semantics and the broader field of cognitive science. The approach of this book is novel in more ways than one. Assuming the mental architecture and procedural modalities of Anderson's ACT-R framework, it presents fine-grained computational models of human language processing tasks which make detailed quantitative predictions that can be checked against the results of self-paced reading and other psycho-linguistic experiments. All models are presented as computer programs that readers can run on their own computer and on inputs of their choice, thereby learning to design, program and run their own models. But even for readers who won't do all that, the book will show how such detailed, quantitatively predicting modeling of linguistic processes is possible. A methodological breakthrough and a must for anyone concerned about the future of linguistics! (Hans Kamp) This book constitutes a major step forward in linguistics and psycholinguistics. It constitutes a unique synthesis of several different research traditions: computational models of psycholinguistic processes, and formal models of semantics and discourse processing. The work also introduces a sophisticated python-based software environment for modeling linguistic processes. This book has the potential to revolutionize not only formal models of linguistics, but also models of language processing more generally. (Shravan Vasishth) .

Computational Analysis and Understanding of Natural Languages: Principles, Methods and Applications, Volume 38, the latest release in this monograph that provides a cohesive and integrated exposition of these advances and associated applications, includes new chapters on Linguistics: Core Concepts and Principles, Grammars, Open-Source Libraries, Application Frameworks, Workflow Systems, Mathematical Essentials, Probability, Inference and Prediction Methods, Random Processes, Bayesian Methods, Machine Learning, Artificial Neural Networks for Natural Language Processing, Information Retrieval, Language Core Tasks, Language Understanding Applications, and more. The synergistic confluence of linguistics, statistics, big data, and high-performance computing is the underlying force for the recent and dramatic advances in analyzing and understanding natural languages, hence making this series all the more important. - Provides a thorough treatment of open-source libraries, application frameworks and workflow systems for natural language analysis and understanding - Presents new chapters on Linguistics: Core Concepts and Principles, Grammars, Open-Source Libraries, Application Frameworks, Workflow Systems, Mathematical Essentials, Probability, and more

How do infants learn a language? Why and how do languages evolve? How do we understand a sentence? This book explores these questions using recent computational models that shed new light on issues related to language and cognition. The chapters in this collection propose original analyses of specific problems and develop computational models that have been tested and evaluated on real data. Featuring contributions from a diverse group of experts, this interdisciplinary book bridges the gap between natural language processing and cognitive sciences. It is divided into three sections, focusing respectively on models of neural and cognitive processing, data driven methods, and social issues in language evolution. This book will be useful to any researcher and advanced student interested in the analysis of the links between the brain and the language faculty.

Work with Python and powerful open source tools such as Gensim and spaCy to perform modern text analysis, natural language processing, and computational linguistics algorithms. Key Features Discover the open source Python text analysis ecosystem, using spaCy, Gensim, scikit-learn, and Keras Hands-on text analysis with Python, featuring natural language processing and computational linguistics algorithms Learn deep learning techniques for text analysis Book Description Modern text analysis is now very accessible using Python and open source tools, so discover how you can now perform modern text analysis in this era of textual data. This book shows you how to use natural language processing, and computational linguistics algorithms, to make inferences and gain insights about data you have. These algorithms are based on statistical machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques. The tools to work with these algorithms are available to you right now - with Python, and tools like Gensim and spaCy. You'll start by learning about data cleaning, and then how to perform computational linguistics from first concepts. You're then ready to explore the more sophisticated areas of statistical NLP and deep learning using Python, with realistic language and text samples. You'll learn to tag, parse, and model text using the best tools. You'll gain hands-on knowledge of the best frameworks to use, and you'll know when to choose a tool like Gensim for topic models, and when to work with Keras for deep learning. This book balances theory and practical hands-on examples, so you can learn about and conduct your own natural language processing projects and computational linguistics. You'll discover the rich ecosystem of Python tools you have available to conduct NLP - and enter the interesting world of modern text analysis. What you will learn Why text analysis is important in our modern age Understand NLP terminology and get to know the Python tools and datasets Learn how to pre-process and clean textual data Convert textual data into vector space representations Using spaCy to process text Train your own NLP models for computational linguistics Use statistical learning and Topic Modeling algorithms for text, using Gensim and scikit-learn Employ deep learning techniques for text analysis using Keras Who this book is for This book is for you if you want to dive in, hands-first, into the interesting world of text analysis and NLP, and you're ready to work with the rich Python ecosystem of tools and datasets waiting for you!

The central task of future-oriented computational linguistics is the development of cognitive machines which humans can freely speak to in their natural language. This will involve the development of a functional theory of language, an objective method of verification, and a wide range of practical applications. Natural communication requires not only verbal processing, but also non-verbal perception and action. Therefore, the content of this book is organized as a theory of language for the construction of talking robots with a focus on the mechanics of natural language communication in both the listener and the speaker.

Covering a strikingly diverse range of languages from 12 linguistic families, this handbook is based on responses to a questionnaire constructed by the editors. Focusing on the formation, distribution and semantic interpretation of quantificational expressions, the book explores 17 languages including German, Italian, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Malagasy, Hebrew, Pima, Basque, and more. The language data sets enable detailed crosslinguistic comparison of numerous features. These include semantic classes of quantifiers (generalized existential, generalized universal, proportional, partitive), syntactically complex quantifiers (intensive modification, Boolean compounding, exception phrases) and several others such as quantifier scope ambiguities, quantifier float, and binary quantifiers. Its theory-independent content extends earlier work by Matthewson (2008) and Bach et al. (1995), making this handbook suitable for linguists, semanticians, philosophers of language and logicians alike.

Quantification is a topic which brings together linguistics, logic, and philosophy. Quantifiers are the essential tools with which, in language or logic, we refer to quantity of things or amount of stuff. In English they include such expressions as no, some, all, both, and many. Peters and Westerstahl present the definitive interdisciplinary exploration of how they work - their syntax, semantics, and inferential role.Quantifiers in Language and Logic is intended for everyone with a scholarly interest in the exact treatment of meaning. It presents a broad view of the semantics and logic of quantifier expressions in natural languages and, to a slightly lesser extent, in logical languages. The authors progress carefully from a fairly elementary level to considerable depth over the course of sixteen chapters; their book will be invaluable to a broad spectrum of readers, from those with a basicknowledge of linguistic semantics and of first-order logic to those with advanced knowledge of semantics, logic, philosophy of language, and knowledge representation in artificial intelligence.

The ideal of using human language to control machines requires a practical theory of natural language communication that includes grammatical analysis of language signs, plus a model of the cognitive agent, with interfaces for recognition and action, an internal database, and an algorithm for reading content in and out. This book offers a functional framework for theoretical analysis of natural language communication and for practical applications of natural language processing.