The Best-Selling Computational Linguistics Books of All Time

In spite of the rapid growth of interest in the computer analysis of language, this book provides an integrated introduction to the field. Inevitably, when many different approaches are still being considered, a straightforward work of synthesis would be neither possible nor practicable. Nevertheless, Ralph Grishman provides a valuable survey of various approaches to the problems of syntax analysis, semantic analysis, text analysis and natural language generation, while considering in greater detail those that seem to him most productive.

The book is written for readers with some background in computer science and finite mathematics, but advanced knowledge of programming languages or compilers is not necessary and nor is a background in linguistics. The exposition is always clear and students will find the exercises and extensive bibliography supporting the text particularly helpful.

Logic programming, an important new method of compute programming resulting from recent research in artifucial intelligence and computer science, has proved to be especially appropriate for solving problems in natrual-language processing. "Prolog and Natural Language Analysis" provides a concise and practical introduction to logic programming and the logic-programming language Prolog both as vehicles for understanding elementary computational linguistics and as tools for implementing the basic components of natural-language-processing systems.

Throughout, the specific concepts and techniques are given rigorous theoretical justification and are demonstrated with working programs that show how Prolog can be used to solve actual problems in syntax, parsing, and semantic intepretation.These examples culminate in a simple working natural-language question-answering system written in Prolog. Extensive bibliographic notes point the reader to related research and further reading.Fernando C.N. Pereira is a senior computer scientist at SRI International's Artificial Intelligence Center and a consulting professor at Stanford University. His research on Prolog and natural-language processing underlies much recent work in logic grammars.Stuart Shieber is a researcher at the Center for the Study of Language and Information and a computer scientist at SRI International's Artificial Intelligence Center. His research on unification-based grammar formalisms bridges logic programming and linguistic theory.

Thirty-eight chapters, commissioned from experts all over the world, describe major concepts, methods, and applications in computational linguistics. Part I, Linguistic Fundamentals, provides an overview of the field suitable for senior undergraduates and non-specialists from other fields of linguistics and related disciplines. Part II describes current tasks, techniques, and tools in Natural Language Processing and aims to meet the needs of post-doctoral workers and others embarking on computational language research. Part III surveys current Applications.

The book is a state-of-the-art reference to one of the most active and productive fields in linguistics. It will be of interest and practical use to a wide range of linguists, as well as to researchers in such fields as informatics, artificial intelligence, language engineering, and cognitive science.