CSC 485/2501 -- Introduction to Computational Linguistics
Fall 2025
Index of this document
Contact information
Instructor: Gerald Penn
-
Office: Bahen west vestibule (outside the top of BA 1190)
-
Office hours: MW 11am-12pm, or
by appointment.
-
Tel: (416)978-7390
-
Email: gpenn@teach.cs.utoronto.ca
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Meeting times
-
Lectures:
| Course |
Section |
Time |
Room |
| CSC 485 |
LEC 0101 |
MWF 10-11 |
| M: BA 1170 |
| W: ES B142 |
| F: GB 244 |
|
| CSC 485 |
LEC 0201 |
MWF 12-1 |
| M: BA 1190 |
| W: GB 244 |
| F: BA 1170 |
|
| CSC 485 |
LEC 2001 |
MWF 10-11 |
| M: BA 1170 |
| W: ES B142 |
| F: GB 244 |
|
| CSC 2501 |
LEC 0101 |
MWF 12-1 |
| M: BA 1190 |
| W: GB 244 |
| F: BA 1170 |
|
- Note: there will occasionally be tutorials on lecture
days
A bulletin
board has also been created for the class, which will be monitored
by the TAs.
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Texts for the Course
| Required |
D. Jurafsky
& J. Martin, Speech
and Language Processing, Prentice Hall, 2nd ed., 2009.
See also the draft 3rd edition |
Errata |
| Required |
S. Bird, E.
Klein and E. Loper, Natural
Language Processing with Python, O'Reilly, 2009. |
|
| Recommended |
Martelli, Ravenscroft,
Holden and McGuire. Python in a Nutshell, 4th ed., O'Reilly,
2023. |
|
| Optional |
J. Allen,
Natural Language Understanding, 2nd ed., Pearson, 1994. |
|
| Recommended |
D. Mertz, Text Processing in Python, Addison Wesley, 2003. |
|
| Free! |
various tutorials on the Python website |
|
Reading for the Essays
Readings for Lectures
| Date |
Topic |
Reading |
| 2-8 Sept |
Introduction to computational linguistics |
J&M: 1; BK&L: 1, 2.3, 4 as necessary |
J&M: Jurafsky and Martin; BK&L: Bird, Klein and Loper; A = Allen;
italics
indicate additional reading.
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Tentative Course outline
-
Introduction to Computational Linguistics
-
Grammars and Parsing
-
Lexical Semantics
-
Word Sense Disambiguation
-
Language Modelling
-
Chart Parsing
-
Ambiguity Resolution
-
Complex Syntactic Categories I: Typed Feature Structures
-
Attachment Disambiguation
-
Stochastic Grammars
-
Complex Syntactic Categories II: Categorial Grammars
-
Supertagging
-
Dependency Graphs
-
Question Answering
-
Anaphora Resolution
-
Parsing for Free-Word-Order Languages
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Calendar of important course-related events
| Date |
Event |
| Wed, 3rd September |
First lecture |
| Fri, 12th September |
Essay 1 due (CSC 2501) |
| Mon, 15th September |
Last day to add course (CSC 485) |
| Wed, 17th September |
Last day to add course (CSC 2501) |
| Fri, 26th September |
Essay 2 due (CSC 2501) |
| Mon, 6th October |
Assignment 1 due |
| Fri, 10th October |
Essay 3 due (CSC 2501) |
| Mon, 13th October |
Thanksgiving -- no meeting |
| Fri, 24th October |
Essay 4 due (CSC 2501) |
| Mon, 27th October |
Last day to drop course (CSC 2501) |
| 27th-31st October |
Reading Week - no meetings |
| Mon, 3rd November |
Assignment 2 due |
| Mon, 11th November |
Last day to drop course (CSC 485) |
| Fri, 21st November |
Essay 5 due (CSC 2501) |
| Tue, 2nd December |
Last lecture |
| Tue, 2nd December |
Assignment 3 due |
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Evaluation and related policies
There will be three homeworks and no final exam. For CSC 2501 students,
there will also be 5 essays to write based upon assigned readings.
| Component |
CSC 485 |
CSC 2501 |
| Essay 1 |
|
3% |
| Essay 2 |
|
3% |
| Assignment 1 |
30% |
25% |
| Essay 3 |
|
3% |
| Essay 4 |
|
3% |
| Assignment 2 |
30% |
25% |
| Essay 5 |
|
3% |
| Assignment 3 |
30% |
25% |
| Quizzes/Attendance |
10% |
10% |
Important note on homeworks: No late homeworks will be accepted
except in case of documented medical or other emergencies.
Policy on collaboration: Collaboration on and discussion of quiz content is encouraged. No collaboration on homeworks or essays is permitted.
The work you submit must be your own. No student is permitted to
discuss the homeworks with any other student from either this or previous years unless the instructor or TAs
make the solutions publicly available. Failure to observe this policy
is an academic offense, carrying a penalty ranging from a zero on
the homework to suspension from the university.
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Announcements
In this space, you will find announcements related to the course. Please
check this space at least weekly.
-
12th September: An updated version of the assignment is now available that clarifies the locations of the different starter code files.
-
1st September: The first class in every section will meet on Wednesday, 3rd September.
-
1st September: PREREQUISITES. CSC 209, and STA 237 or 246 or 247 or 255 or 257.
CSC 324 or 330 or 384 is strongly recommended.
Engineering students may substitute APS105H1/ APS106H1/ ESC180H1/ CSC180H1 for the CSC 209
requirement, although experience with the Unix operating system is strongly recommended,
and/or ECE302H1/ STA286H1/ CHE223H1/ CME263H1/ MIE231H1/ MIE236H1/ MSE238H1/ ECE286H1
for the statistics requirement. The University's
automatic registration system checks for prerequisites: even if
you have managed to register for the class, you will be dropped from it
unless either you had satisfied the prerequisite before you registered,
or you received a prerequisite waiver.
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Handouts
In this space you will find on-line PDF versions of course handouts,
including homeworks.
To view these handouts you will need access to a PDF viewer. If your
machine does not have the required software, you can
download
Adobe Acrobat Reader for free.
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Gerald Penn, 12th September,
2025
This web-page was adapted from the web-page for another course,
created by Vassos Hadzilacos.