PSYCH 227 / LINGUIST 247
Seminar in Psycholinguistics:
Information-Theoretic Models of Language and Cognition


Autumn 2009

COURSE INFORMATION
Instructors
Dan Jurafsky, jurafsky@stanford.edu  
Office: Margaret Jacks (bld 460) 113
Office Hours: TBA
Michael Ramscar, michael at psych dot stanford dot edu
Office Hours: TBA


Place/Time 126 Margaret Jacks Hall, Tuesday/Thursday 3:15-4:30pm
Description Information theory and its relation to learning and to reference, meaning, and information encoding. Information-theoretic models of linguistic structure at the phonological, morphological, and syntactic levels, and the links between information theory and information structure/clause packaging. The role of uncertainty and uniform information density in sentence processing
Required Work • 50%: Final project • 25%: Presentation of two papers
• 25%: Participation in discussion (including posting notes about the reading)
More on the Final Project

SCHEDULE
Wk
Date
Who

Topic and Readings

1
Sep 22
Ramscar/ Jurafsky

Planning meeting, course topics, overview of big questions

1
Sep 24
Richard (for Goldsmith)

Probability and Information Theory

  • For those with no probability theory or information theory, start with: John A. Goldsmith. 2007. Probability for linguists.
  • For those with no information theory, the above plus: Sheldon Ross. 2010. A First Course in Probability. Eigth Edition. Section 9.3 "Surprise, Uncertainty, and Entropy", pages 425-429.
  • For those with no (or rusty) probability theory, the above two plus: The first few chapters of any good probability book, like Ross, or this online pdf text or this online html text
  • For those who already know information theory and probability: Robert A. Rescorla. 1988. Pavlovian Conditioning: It's Not What You Think It Is. American Psychologist, 43(3), 151-160
2
Sep 29
Ben, Carl

Symbols and Prediction

2
Oct 1
Nat

Symbols and Prediction

3
Oct 6
DaveA, Carl

Shannon, the Shannon Game, and the Entropy of English

3
Oct 8
Tyler, Chigusa

Zipf and Least Effort

  1. Least Effort and why frequent words and morphemes are short:
    • Pages 1-8 and 19-22 (DONT READ 22-31, that's for later) from Zipf, George K. (1949). Human behaviour and the principle of least effort: An introduction to human ecology. New York: Hafner.
    • Pages 20-39 and 172-176 from Zipf, George K. (1935). The psycho-biology of language: An introduction to dynamic philology. Houghton Mifflin.
  2. Why frequent phonemes are more likely to change:
    • Pages 73-81 and 109-121 from Zipf, George K. (1935). The psycho-biology of language: An introduction to dynamic philology. Houghton Mifflin.
    • Pages 98-108 from Zipf, G. (1949). Human behaviour and the principle of least effort: An introduction to human ecology. New York: Hafner.
  3. Velocity of communication (included in PDF for #2 above):
    • Pages 283-287 from Zipf, George K. (1935). The psycho-biology of language: An introduction to dynamic philology. Houghton Mifflin.
4
Oct 13
Chigusa, ???

Predictability and Phonetic Reduction

4
Oct 15
Tanja, Richard

Predictability and Phonetic Reduction

5
Oct 20
Tejaswi, Justine

Uniformation Information Density across a Discourse

5
Oct 22
Robin,DaveC

Uniform Information Density in Syntax

6
Oct 28

Richa,Karthik,Richa

Optimal Lexicons

6
Oct 30

Justine, Carl

Expectation and Meaning

7
Nov 3
Tyler,DaveC

Information Structure I

7
Nov 5
Tanya,Karthik

More on Referring Expressions
8
Nov 10
Tejaswi,DaveA

Information Structure and Verb Predictability
8
Nov 12

Richard,Robin

Markedness and Iconicity

9
Nov 17

Richard,Nat

Phonology and Morphology

9
Nov 19

Uriel

Phonology and Morphology

10
Dec 1

Karthik/Richa/Tejaswi,Justine,Nat

Final Project Presentations

10
Dec 3

DaveC,Chigusa,Richard,DaveA

Final Project Presentations

Students with Documented Disabilities: Students who may need an academic accommodation based on the impact of a disability must initiate the request with the Student Disability Resource Center (SDRC) located within the Office of Accessible Education (OAE). SDRC staff will evaluate the request with required documentation, recommend reasonable accommodations, and prepare an Accommodation Letter for faculty dated in the current quarter in which the request is being made. Students should contact the SDRC as soon as possible since timely notice is needed to coordinate accommodations. The OAE is located at 563 Salvatierra Walk (phone: 723-1066)