Information System of Masaryk University 

Course Information

PA091 Semantics and Communication

Faculty of Informatics
Spring 2012

Extent and Intensity

2/0. 2 credit(s) (plus extra credits for completion). Recommended Type of Completion: k (colloquium). Alternate Types of Completion: z (credit).

Teacher(s)

doc. PhDr. Karel Pala, CSc. (lecturer)

Supervisor

prof. Ing. Václav Přenosil, CSc.
Department of Information Technologies - Faculty of Informatics
Contact Person: doc. PhDr. Karel Pala, CSc.
Dodavatelské pracoviště: Department of Information Technologies - Faculty of Informatics

Timetable

Tue 8:00–9:50 B411

Prerequisites

The basic knowledge of the logical programming ()is recommended as well as logical analysis of natural language (Logická analýza PJ I)

Course Enrollment Limitations

The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.

Fields of study the course is directly associated with

there are 26 fields of study the course is directly associated with, display

Course objectives

Main objectives can be summarized as follows:
- the fundamental problems of the analysis of meaning with regard to the computer processing;
- basic issues of the text and discourse analysis with regard to the computer processing;
Students will learn about:
- approaches to the semantic analysis of natural language;
- meanings of meaning;
- types of meaning;
- relation between semantics and society;
- methodology of the semantics from the scientific point of view;
- semantic features and componential analysis;
Further, the students will understand:
- semantic structure of the natural language sentences and its representation;
- relation of the semantic representation of NL sentences to the knowledge representation;
- logical and lexical semantics;
- semantic networks and ontologies;
- WordNet a EuroWordNet, tools for handling semantic networks and ontologies (Visdic, DebVisdic);
- relation between syntax and semantics;
- lexicography, word meanings and machine dictionaries;
- description of the word meanings and collocations, dictionary definitions;
- computer lexicography and DEBII platform;
- processing of the contexts and multiword expressions, Word Sketch Engine;
- semantics and pragmatics;
- text and discourse analysis;

Syllabus

• Meaning of meaning;
• Types of meaning;
• Semantics and society;
• Is semantics scientific?;
• Semantic features and componential analysis;
• Logical and lexical semantics and types of its representation;
• Meaning representation and knowledge representation;
• Semantic networks and ontologies;
• WordNet and EuroWordNet, tools for handling them (Visdic, DebVisdic);
• Semantics and syntax;
• Semantics and the dictionary;
• Description of the word meaning, dictionary definitions;
• Computer lexicography and DEBII platform;
• Processing of the contexts and Word Sketch Engine;
• Semantics and pragmatics;
• Text and discourse analysis;

Literature

• LEECH, Geoffrey. Semantics :the study of meaning. 2nd ed. London: Penguin Books, 1981. xii, 383 s. ISBN 0-14-013487-5. info

Teaching methods

Teaching is performed in the form of oral lectures and seminars, in which the slides and demos of the relevant software tools are combined. Students work out homeworks, prepare presentations based on the literature they had read and develop smaller projects. At the appropriate points of the teaching the open dialog between a teacher and students is used.

Assessment methods

Oral examination and written test

Further Comments

The course is taught annually.

The course is also listed under the following terms Spring 2003, Spring 2004, Spring 2005, Spring 2006, Spring 2007, Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011.

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