Computers and Human Language

Offering an inquiry into the nature of language from the perspective of computing, Computers and Human Language synthesizes recent research in linguistics, computer science, and experimental psychology as it explores the major computational approaches to language, especially the modeling of processes by which language is comprehended. Among the topics considered are the computationally symbolic basis of language, lexicons as repositories of information, automated text processing, phonology, phototactics, speech synthesis and the persisting challenge of continuous speech, transformational grammars and their successors, linguistic and conceptual approaches to sentence meaning, and discourse coherence and plan-based bridging inferences. The book also explores such up-to-the-minute subjects as neurally-inspired computing, parsing and psychological plausibility, the controversial representation hypothesis, and the ramifications of discourse "focus."
With its clear, engaging style and gradual, systematic exposition, Computers and Human Language makes the fast-moving world of computational linguistics accessible to the non-specialist reader.

George W. Smith is at University of Massachusetts, Boston.