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Syllabus

Logistics

Office hours

Required Texts and Tools

  • A Practical Grammar of the St. Lawrence Island / Siberian Yupik Eskimo Language by Steven A. Jacobson

  • A grammar of Central Alaskan Yupik (CAY) by Osahito Miyaoka

    This text is available when physically on campus in electronic form at the above link through the University of Illinois library; note however that access restrictions may limit the number of students who can simultaneously access the item. This text can be purchased in print or electronic form from the publisher.

Student Responsibilities

Schedule and Readings

Students are expected to regularly review the schedule of assigned readings and video lectures. This schedule is subject to change.

  • Some of the material covered in readings will be covered in class.
  • Some of the material covered in readings will be covered in video lectures.
  • Some of the material covered in readings will not be covered in class and will not be covered in video lectures.
  • Some material will be covered in the video lectures, but not in the readings and not in class.
  • Some material will be covered in class, but not in the readings and not in video lectures.

Responsibilities

  • Students are responsible for all of the material covered in every reading.
  • Students are responsible for all of the material covered in every video lecture.
  • Students are responsible for all of the material covered in class.
  • Students are responsible for all of the material covered in public Piazza posts. This includes clarifications to homework instructions.

Expectations

  • This is an advanced graduate-level course in computational linguistics.
    • Students should have already taken LING 406 or CS 447 and have done well.
    • Students should be comfortable writing and debugging computer programs for computational linguistics.
    • Students should already be comfortable with the concepts of phonetics, phonology, morphology, and syntax, as well as morphophonology and morphosyntax, and should already be able to define each of those concepts.
    • Students should ideally have already taken multiple core linguistics courses, such as Syntax and Phonology. Students should, for example, be able to read a formal linguistics paper, identify the interlinear gloss examples, and be able to explain what is going on in a particular interlinear gloss example.
    • Students should already have experience and expertise with the Linux command line. For example, students should already be very comfortable using cd, ls, mkdir, sed, and grep.
  • Students are expected to attentively read assigned readings.
  • Students are expected to actively follow along and practice the examples presented in the readings.
  • Students are expected to attentively view assigned video lectures.
  • Students are expected to attend the entirety of every class session and actively participate in the class.
  • Homework, exam, and quiz questions may come from readings, video lectures, or other material previously covered in class.
  • Homework, exam, and quiz questions may cover material from the readings that have not been covered in class or in video lectures.
  • Homework, exam, and quiz questions may cover material from the video lectures that have not been covered in class or in the readings.

Learning Goals, Outcomes, and Grading

Students are expected to attend class, attentively read assigned readings, attentively view assigned video lectures, regularly practice the presented tools and techniques, and complete all assigned work.

Students who do so are expected to attain the learning goals and outcomes.

Grades will be assessed through the following tasks:

  • Students will read, learn, write, code, and teach about an endangered language which they have not previously studied (30%)
    • Students will read primary documentation (such as a reference grammar) of the language
    • Students will demonstrate understanding of the material
      • in writing
      • via written examination
      • through teaching others
        • in-class presentation
        • contributing to development of a study guide
        • creating and leading a lab exercise
  • Students will conduct a literature review for a computational linguistics task/area (20%). This will include:
    • A bibliography in bibtex form
    • An annotated bibliography
    • A written document summarizing the state of the art
  • Coding and experimentation in a computational linguistics task involving an endangered language (25%). This will include:
    • Determining an existing state-of-the-art technique to use as a baseline.
    • Implementing a system that extends the state-of-the-art
    • Running experiments
    • Writing up the experiments as a 4-page ACL paper
  • Extended coding, experimentation, and writing (20%)
    • This is strongly suggested to be done in groups.
    • This should result in a final paper written in 8-page ACL style.
  • Serving as a peer reviewer for other students’ papers (5%)

DRES

If a student has a disability or condition that requires special consideration, the student is expected to post a private message to the instructor on Piazza (filed under the DRES folder) no later than the beginning of the second day of class. The message should:

  • Include a scanned attachment of the requisite letter from the University Division of Disability Resources and Educational Services.
  • Include a detailed description of the accommodations that the student is actually requesting for this class.

Academic Integrity

This course follows the University of Illinois Student Code regarding Academic Integrity. The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences also has an excellent web page on the topic. You are expected to read these resources prior to the second day of class, and to understand your responsibilities with regard to Academic Integrity.

All work submitted for this class must be solely your own. Violations of Academic Integrity include, but are not limited to, copying, cheating, and unapproved collaboration. Violations will not be tolerated.

Absences and Late Work Policy

Students are expected complete all assigned readings and video lectures prior to the class for which they are assigned.

Excused absence

If a student will be absent from class for any reason, the student is expected to inform the course instructor and TA ahead of time.

  • Each absence must be separately reported ahead of time via a private post on Piazza to the instructor and TA
  • Each Piazza post must be filed under the folder “excused-absence”
  • Each Piazza post must list the date of the absence
  • Each Piazza post must list the reason for the absence
  • Each Piazza post must mention whether or not makeup credit is being requested
  • If makeup credit is being requested, the Piazza post must include a PDF attachment of the makeup work

Makeup work

If an absence is properly reported ahead of time, the student may turn in makeup work at the time that the absence is reported. If the absence is excused by the instructor, the makeup work will be graded in lieu of any participation and/or quiz credit missed as a result of the excused absence.

  • The makeup work must be a single PDF for each excused absence.
  • The PDF must begin with a title of the form “YYYY-MM-DD: TOPIC”, where YYYY is replaced with the four-digit year, MM is replaced by the two-digit month, and DD is replaced by the two-digit date of the absence and TOPIC is replaced by the topic of the day as listed on the course schedule.
  • The PDF must list the student’s name, email address, and github ID immediately after the title.
  • For every assigned reading and for every assigned video, the student must include a titled section for that reading or video. Each section body must be no less than 200 words in length, and must summarize the content of that reading or video.

Late work

Homework assignments are expected to be turned in on time. Homework turned in late will be docked 5 percentage points per day late (this corresponds approximately to half of a letter grade per day late).

For some or all homework assignments, the correct solution will be presented to the class after the homework deadline. The solution will typically be presented on the first class period after the assignment is due. Under no circumstances will late work be accepted after the solution has been presented to the class.