Speech and Language Processing, 2nd Edition Author: Amazon Prime Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering | Language: English | ISBN:
0131873210 | Format: PDF
Speech and Language Processing, 2nd Edition Description
An explosion of Web-based language techniques, merging of distinct fields, availability of phone-based dialogue systems, and much more make this an exciting time in speech and language processing. The first of its kind to thoroughly cover language technology – at all levels and with all modern technologies – this book takes an empirical approach to the subject, based on applying statistical and other machine-learning algorithms to large corporations. Builds each chapter around one or more worked examples demonstrating the main idea of the chapter, usingthe examples to illustrate the relative strengths and weaknesses of various approaches. Adds coverage of statistical sequence labeling, information extraction, question answering and summarization, advanced topics in speech recognition, speech synthesis. Revises coverage of language modeling, formal grammars, statistical parsing, machine translation, and dialog processing. A useful reference for professionals in any of the areas of speech and language processing.
- Hardcover: 1024 pages
- Publisher: Prentice Hall; 2nd edition (May 16, 2008)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0131873210
- ISBN-13: 978-0131873216
- Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 1.6 inches
- Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
The authors have the challenge of covering a vast area, and they do a good job of highlighting the hard problems within individual sub-fields, such as machine translation. The availability of an accompanying Web site is a strong plus, as is the extensive bibliography, which also includes links to freely available software and resources.
Now for the negatives.
While I would still buy and recommend this book, you will need to supplement it with other material; in addition to the accurate "broad and shallow" comment made by another reviewer, I would add that much of the material, as presented, is aimed at the comprehension level of a computer-science PhD and doesn't really meet the definition of a textbook for either undergraduate or graduate students. It is not that the material is intrinsically difficult: one recurring problem in the book is the vast number of forward references, where a topic is introduced very briefly but not explained until 20-50 pages later. In most cases, if you don't understand a passage in the text, I would advise that you keep skimming ahead - you may be rewarded because in several cases, the book covers a particular approach for 2-3 pages before telling you that its underlying assumptions are flawed, and that modern methods for addressing the problem use alternative approaches.
In other cases, the authors try to explain topics that might deserve entire chapters in about ten lines - a poster child is the explanation on page 736 of how Support Vector Machines can be used for multiclass problems. To someone who is familiar with SVMs, this material is unnecessary, while those who are not will not be enlightened by knowing that SVMS are "binary approaches based on the discovery of separating hyperplanes".
Daniel Jurafsky and James Martin have assembled an incredible mass of information about natural language processing. The authors note that speech and language processing have largely non-overlapping histories that have relatively recently began to grow together. They have written this book to meet the need for a well-integrated discussion, historical and technical, of both fields.
In twenty-five chapters, the book covers the breadth of computational linguistics with an overall logical organization. Five chapter groupings organize material on Words, Speech, Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics, and Applications. The four Applications chapters address Information Extraction, Question Answering and Summarization, Dialogue and Conversational Agents, and Machine Translation. The book covers a lot of ground, and a fifty-page bibliography directs readers to vast expanses beyond the book's horizon. The aging content problem present in all such books is addressed through the book's web site and numerous links to other sites, tools, and demonstrations. There is a lot of stuff.
While it is an achievement to assemble such a collection of relevant information, the book could be more useful than it is. An experienced editor could rearrange content into a more readable flow of information and increase the clarity of some of the authors' examples and explanations. As is, the book is a useful reference for researchers and practitioners already working in the field. A more clear presentation would lower the experience requirement and make its store of information available to students and non-specialists as well.
Speech and Language Processing, 2nd Edition Preview
Link
Please Wait...