6.891 (Fall 2003): Machine Learning Approaches for Natural Language Processing

Instructor: Michael Collins (home)

Class times: Monday, Wednesday 4-5.30, Room 1-379.

Office hours: Thursdays 10.30-12, Room NE43-723. If you'd like to meet with me at other times, please send me email at mcollins at ai dot mit dot edu.

  • Course description
  • General information (grading policy etc.) .ps, .pdf.

    New Announcements (November 5th, 2003)

  • The instructions for Assignment II (the final project) are now posted here. Please read the instructions carefully! The project is due by Wednesday, December 10th.

    Lecture Slides

    Lecture 1 (9/3/03): Introduction .ps,.pdf
    Lecture 2 (9/8/03): Language Modeling, and Smoothed estimation .ps,.pdf
    Lecture 3 (9/10/03): Stochastic Parsing I .ps,.pdf
    Lecture 4 (9/15/03): Stochastic Parsing II .ps,.pdf
    Lecture 5 (9/17/03): Stochastic Parsing III .ps,.pdf
    Lecture 6 (9/24/03): Log-Linear Models .ps,.pdf
    Lecture 7 (9/29/03): Tagging .ps,.pdf
    Lecture 8 (10/1/03): Log-Linear Models for Parsing, and the EM Algorithm Part I .ps,.pdf
    Lecture 9 (10/6/03): The EM Algorithm, Part II .ps,.pdf
    Lecture 10 (10/8/03): Machine Translation, Part I .ps,.pdf
    Lecture 11 (10/15/03): Machine Translation, Part II .ps,.pdf
    Lecture 12 (10/20/03): Machine Translation, Part III .ps,.pdf
    Lecture 13 (10/22/03): Machine Translation, Part IV .ps,.pdf
    Lecture 14 (10/27/03): Global Linear Models, Part I .ps,.pdf
    Lecture 15 (10/29/03): Global Linear Models, Part II .ps,.pdf
    Lecture 16 (11/3/03): Global Linear Models, Part III .ps,.pdf
    Lecture 17 (11/5/03): Theories of Generalization .ps,.pdf
    Lecture 18 (11/12/03): Word Sense Disambiguation .ps,.pdf
    Lecture 19 (11/17/03): Guest Lecture (Regina Barzilay)
    Lecture 20 (11/19/03): Information Extraction, and Partially Supervised Approaches .ps,.pdf
    Lecture 21 (11/24/03): Relation Extraction .ps,.pdf
    Lecture 22 (12/1/03): Dialogue Systems .ps,.pdf
    Lecture 23 (12/3/03): Optimality Theory .ps,.pdf
    Lecture 24 (12/8/03): Kernel Methods .ps,.pdf

    Lecture Slides + Lecture Readings:


    Lecture 1 (3rd September, 2003): Introduction

  • Slides .ps, .pdf.
  • Syllabus .ps, .pdf.
  • Questionnaire .ps, .pdf.

  • Lecture 2 (8th September, 2003): Language Modeling, and Smoothed estimation

  • Slides .ps, .pdf.
  • Further readings:
  • Lecture 3 (10th September, 2003): Stochastic Parsing I

  • Slides .ps, .pdf.

    Lecture 4 (15th September, 2003): Stochastic Parsing II

  • Slides .ps, .pdf.
  • Two readings for the lecture:

    Lecture 5 (17th September, 2003): Stochastic Parsing III

  • Slides .ps, .pdf.

    Lecture 6 (24th September, 2003): Log-Linear Models

  • Slides .ps, .pdf.
  • There is one reading for the lecture:

    Lecture 7 (29th September, 2003): Tagging

  • Slides .ps, .pdf.
  • Two readings for the lecture:

    Lecture 8 (1st October, 2003): Log-Linear Models for Parsing, and the EM Algorithm Part I

  • Slides .ps, .pdf.
  • Notes on Lagrange multipliers (thanks to Ali Mohammad for putting these together): .ps, .pdf.

    Lecture 9 (6th October, 2003):The EM Algorithm, Part II

  • Slides .ps, .pdf.

    Lecture 10 (8th October, 2003): Machine Translation, Part I

  • Slides .ps, .pdf.
  • There are two readings for the lecture. Please note: I've given both pdf and ps versions of each paper, but the .ps versions may be better (the conversion from postscript to pdf is not always perfect). If you can't view postscript files, you may want to download a copy of ghostview (try a search for ghostview on google).

    Lecture 11 (15th October, 2003): Machine Translation, Part II

  • Slides .ps, .pdf.

    Lecture 12 (20th October, 2003): Machine Translation, Part III

  • Slides .ps, .pdf.
  • A reading for the lecture:

    Lecture 13 (22nd October, 2003): Machine Translation, Part IV

  • Slides .ps, .pdf.

  • Lecture 14 (27th October, 2003): Global Linear Models, Part I

  • Slides .ps, .pdf.

  • Lecture 15 (29th October, 2003): Global Linear Models, Part II

  • Slides .ps, .pdf.

  • Lecture 16 (3rd November, 2003): Global Linear Models, Part III

  • Slides .ps, .pdf.

  • Lecture 17 (5th November, 2003): Theories of Generalization

  • Slides .ps, .pdf.

  • Lecture 18 (12th November, 2003): Word Sense Disambiguation

  • Slides .ps, .pdf.

  • Lecture 19 (17th November, 2003): Guest Lecture (Regina Barzilay)

    Lecture 20 (19th November, 2003): Information Extraction, and Partially Supervised Approaches

  • Slides .ps, .pdf.

  • Lecture 21 (24th November, 2003): Relation Extraction

  • Slides .ps, .pdf.

  • Lecture 22 (1st December, 2003): Dialogue Systems

  • Slides .ps, .pdf.

  • Lecture 23 (3rd December, 2003): Optimality Theory

  • Slides .ps, .pdf.

  • Lecture 24 (8th December, 2003): Kernel Methods

  • Slides .ps, .pdf.