Computational Techniques and Programming for Linguists

Programming or coding is an essential skill for anyone working with Artificial Intelligence (AI) today. It is particularly crucial for fields such as computational linguistics and Natural Language Processing (NLP), where analyzing and understanding language relies heavily on programming. This course provides a comprehensive introduction to programming with Python, focusing specifically on applications in linguistics. No prior programming experience is required. Students will first learn the fundamentals of programming and Python syntax. Then, they will explore how to use some tools to the analysis of language data.

Course Objectives

Introduce the students to core programming concepts such as variables, data types, control structures, and functions.
Enable students to develop practical programming skills in Python and emphasizing its use for linguistic analysis.
Equip students with problem-solving skills by writing and executing small projects that integrate programming and linguistic analysis to answer research questions or explore AI applications.

Instructor

Elsayed Issa
esissa at purdue dot edu

TA

Jingying Hu
hu880 at purdue dot edu

Book and Code

Michael Hammond. (2020). Python for Linguists. Cambridge University Press. (freely available online via Purdue library).

Schedule

Week	Dates	Content	Materials	Homework
1	Jan 13	Overview and Setup Introducing the course and getting to know you.	BrightSpace Logging in to BrightSpace Tutorials Python Installation [tutorial] Jupyter Notebook [tutorial] Google Colab allows you to write and execute Python in your browser. We will use it in case you had issues with your machine. Google Colab [See Google Colab]
	Jan 15	Logistics Troubleshooting Python installation, terminal work, and introducing jupyter notebook and Google colab	Readings MH: Ch 1 Notebooks Notebook 1 [ipynb] [html]	HW 1 [OUT]
2	Jan 20	Data Types and Variables Variables, Numbers and Booleans	Readings MH: Ch 2 (p. 9 to p. 14) Notebooks Notebooks [ipynb] [html] Labs Practice Lab 1 [download]
	Jan 22	Data Types and Variables Strings and Lists	Readings MH: Ch 2 (p. 14 to p. 21) Notebooks Notebooks [ipynb] [html] Strings cheatsheet [notebook] [html] Lists cheatsheet [notebook] [html] Labs Practice Lab 2 [download]
3	Jan 27	Data Types and Variables Sets, Tuples, Dictionaries	Readings MH: Ch 2 (p. 21 to p. 27) Notebooks Notebooks [ipynb] [html] Tuple ans Sets cheatsheets [notebook] [html] Dictionaries cheatsheets [notebook] [html] Labs Practice Lab 3 [download]
	Jan 29	Workshop	Notebooks Notebooks [ipynb]	HW 1 [DUE]
4	Feb 3	Control structures Grouping, identation, If statement	Readings MH: Ch 3 (p. 29 to p. 41) Notebooks Notebooks [ipynb] [html] Labs Practice Lab 4 [download]	HW 2 [OUT]
	Feb 5	Control structures For loops	Readings MH: Ch 3 (p. 41 to p. 46) Notebooks Notebooks [ipynb] [html] Labs Practice Lab 5 [download]
5	Feb 10	Workshop	Notebooks Notebooks [ipynb] [html]
	Feb 12	File IO	Readings MH: Ch 4 Notebooks Notebooks [ipynb] [html] Labs Practice Lab 6 [download]
6	Feb 17	Functions and Modules	Readings MH: Ch 5 Notebooks Notebooks [ipynb] [html] Labs Practice Lab 7 [download]	HW 2 [DUE]
	Feb 19	Regular Expressions I	Readings MH: Ch 6 Notebooks Notebooks [ipynb] [html] Labs Practice Lab 8 [download]