Speech and Language Processing: An Introduction to Natural Language Processing, Computational Linguistics and Speech Recognition (Prentice Hall Series in Artificial Intelligence) (Library Binding)

by Daniel Jurafsky (Author), James H. Martin (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
... ideal for ... linguists who want to learn more about computational modeling and techniques in language processing; computer scientists building language applications who want to learn more about the linguistic underpinnings of the field; speech technologists who want to learn more about language understanding, semantics and discourse; and all those wanting to learn more about speech processing. For instructors ... this book is a dream. It covers virtually every aspect of NLP... What's truly astounding is that the book covers such a broad range of topics, while giving the reader the depth to understand and make use of the concepts, algorithms and techniques that are presented... ideal as a course textbook for advanced undergraduates, as well as graduate students and researchers in the field. -- Johanna Moore, University of Edinburgh

Speech and Language Processing is a comprehensive, reader-friendly, and up-to-date guide to computational linguistics, covering both statistical and symbolic methods and their application. It will appeal both to senior undergraduate students, who will find it neither too technical nor too simplistic, and to researchers, who will find it to be a helpful guide to the newly established techniques of a rapidly growing research field. -- Graeme Hirst, University of Toronto

This book is an absolute necessity for instructors at all levels, as well as an indispensable reference for researchers. Introducing NLP, computational linguistics, and speech recognition comprehensively in a single book is an ambitious enterprise. The authors have managed it admirably, paying careful attention to traditional foundations, relating recent developments and trends to those foundations, and tying it all together with insight and humor. Remarkable. -- Philip Resnik, University of Maryland

This is quite simply the most complete introduction to natural language and speech technology ever written. Virtually every topic in the field is covered, in a prose style that is both clear and engaging. The discussion is linguistically informed, and strikes a nice balance between theoretical computational models, and practical applications. It is an extremely impressive achievement. -- Richard Sproat, AT&T Labs -- Research

Product Description
This book takes an empirical approach to language processing, based on applying statistical and other machine-learning algorithms to large corpora.Methodology boxes are included in each chapter. Each chapter is built around one or more worked examples to demonstrate the main idea of the chapter. Covers the fundamental algorithms of various fields, whether originally proposed for spoken or written language to demonstrate how the same algorithm can be used for speech recognition and word-sense disambiguation. Emphasis on web and other practical applications. Emphasis on scientific evaluation. Useful as a reference for professionals in any of the areas of speech and language processing.

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Product Details

• Library Binding: 934 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1 edition (February 5, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130950696
• ISBN-13: 978-0130950697
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #499,147 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

67 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Landmark Book, September 12, 2000

By	Peter Norvig (Palo Alto, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The previous best book on NLP was James Allen's (1995), which was considered ambitious at the time because it covered syntax, semantics and some pragmatics. But Martin and Jurafsky is far more ambitious, because it covers speech recognition as well, and has far expanded coverage of language generation and translation. It also covers the great advances in statistical techniques that have marked the last decade. It is a beautiful synthesis that will reward the experienced expert in the field with new insights and new connections in the form of historical notes that are not well known. And it is well-written and clear enough that even the beginning student can follow it through. Before this book, you would have had to read Allen's book, Charniak's short book on statistical NLP, something on speech recognition, and something else on generation and translation. Like squeezing clowns into a circus car, Jurafsky and Martin somehow, improbably, manage to squeeze this all into one book, but in a way that is elegant and holds together perfectly; not at all the hodge-podge that one might expect. I expect that this book will be seen as one of the landmarks that pushes the field forward.

It's worth comparing this book to the other recent NLP text: Manning and Shutze. Jurafsky and Martin cover much more ground, including many aspects that are ignored by Manning and Schutze. So if you want a general overview of natural language, if you want to know about the syntax of English, or the intricacies of dialog, if you are teaching or taking a general NLP course, then Jurafsky and Martin is the one for you. But if your needs are more focused on the algorithms for lower-level text processing with statistical techniques, or if you want to build a specific practical application, then Manning and Schutze is far more comprehensive and likely to have your answer. If you're a serious student or professional in NLP, you just have to have both.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but many errors, May 19, 2002

By A Customer

This book is a great general introduction to NLP, covering a broad range of topics. Unfortunately there are many errors in the mathematical formulae and the algorithm descriptions, so do make sure to download the errata list from the book's home page.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Needs a second volume which explains the first, May 19, 2005

By	Sean A. Fulop "safulop" (Fresno, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is by now an accepted classic in the field. It is basically the only textbook that covers so much of computational linguistics, so I have had no choice but to use it for the past several years. Just the same, I'd rather not use it for teaching linguistics students. While the book has much to offer the professional, including a broad range of topics extensively researched, it is much more useful in this "handbook" capacity than as a textbook for the uninitiated. The chief reasons for this are: 1) It is pedagogically very poor; the majority of concepts are either explained in a confusing and obfuscatory manner or are not explained and are simply left in algorithmic form. This is not usually edifying to the linguistics student with no computer science background. 2) There are too many mistakes in its algorithms and method overviews. So far as I can see, even the famed Earley parsing algorithm is wrong here, it will not yield the correct output. 3) It is not written in a language that linguistics students can understand. With no background in mathematics, computer science, or pseudocode, such students need much more coddling than is provided by this book, and they are virtually unable to read it. Basically, as the title to this review states, what is called for now is a book to explain the contents of this book. Perhaps if my students keep encouraging me to write it. . .