Overview

Mathematical Linguistics introduces the mathematical foundations of linguistics to computer scientists, engineers, and mathematicians interested in natural language processing. The book presents linguistics as a cumulative body of knowledge from the ground up, without assuming prior knowledge of linguistics. Where other textbooks concentrate on syntax and semantics, this comprehensive volume covers a rich array of topics including phonology and morphology, probabilistic approaches, complexity, learnability, and the analysis of speech and handwriting. The first of its kind, this book is useful for those in information science, e.g., information retrieval and extraction, search engines; and in natural language technologies, e.g., speech recognition, optical character recognition, HCI. Exercises suitable for advanced readers are included, along with suggestions for further reading and an extensive bibliography.