Computational Semantics and Pragmatics

MSc Logic / MSc AI :: University of Amsterdam


Lecturer: Raquel Fernández (Institute for Logic, Language and Computation)

Semantics and pragmatics are concerned with the study of natural language meaning and its context of use in written texts and in conversation. The computational counterparts of these disciplines address these issues from an explicitly empirical and computational point of view, combining insights from linguistic theory, computational linguistics, and artificial intelligence. In this course you will get introduced to some of the fundamental concepts in contemporary computational semantics and pragmatics. The specific topics covered change each year.

Prerequisites: There are no formal prerequisites, but I'll assume some basic knowledge of semantics/pragmatics of natural language. Basic programming skills are useful.

Evaluation: The course typically consists of lectures and discussions of research papers; everybody is expected to play an active role in class. You will be asked to write a short paper by the end of the course (the last couple of weeks will be dedicated to this). This paper will account for most of the final grade (around 70%). The rest will correspond to exercises, presentations, and discussions.