Logic List Mailing Archive

Two PhD student positions in computational linguistics, Utrecht (The Netherlands), Deadline: 10 Jun 2017

Two 4-year PhD positions in computational linguistics, starting September 
2017

Successful applicants will be participating in the project 'A composition 
calculus for vector-based semantic modelling with a localization for 
Dutch'. Focusing on empirical data from Dutch, the project aims to combine 
a vector-based modelling of lexical semantics with a typelogical 
compositional account of how word meanings are combined to obtain 
interpretations for larger linguistic units. The project is funded by the 
NWO Open Competition programme and will be conducted at the Utrecht 
Institute of Linguistics OTS, at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. 
Principal investigator (PI) is Michael Moortgat.

The project provides for two PhD positions and a postdoc position (to be 
advertised separately and starting per 2018) for the following 
subprojects:

1.  (PhD1) *Semantic structures for enriched compositional distributional 
models*. This project works out the logical and mathematical foundations 
of the proposed grammar architecture and its compositional vector-based 
interpretation. A first aim is to show how the derivations of a 
state-of-the art typelogical syntax model can be mapped to an 
interpretation in finite dimensional vector spaces and linear maps. 
Secondly, we investigate enriched distributional models that exploit the 
properties of the syntactic source logic more fully.

2.  (PhD2) *Typelogical grammar induction for vector-based semantics from 
Dutch treebank data*. Whereas PhD1 develops a language-independent 
framework for compositional distributional semantics, the present project 
develops a localization of the abstract model for Dutch. The project 
applies machine learning techniques to obtain the required lexical entries 
and the associated vectorial representations from annotated corpora. For 
the distributional interpretation, it employs a linguistically informed 
notion of `context', based on the dependency relations of words.

3.  (Postdoc) *Empirical validation of the extended vector-based semantic 
model*. This project evaluates the abstract grammatical model on Dutch 
empirical data, and conducts a number of experiments in order to measure 
the performance of the model as compared to the alternative approaches. 
The focus is on the structural particularities of the Dutch language that 
pose a challenge to a compositional vector-based interpretation.

For a more complete project description, details on terms of employment, 
salary, requirements and application format, please visit the Utrecht 
University job advertisement link below. Deadline for applications is June 
10, 2017.

https://www.uu.nl/en/organisation/working-at-utrecht-university/jobs

For additional information, contact me at M.J.Moortgat@uu.nl

--Michael Moortgat
--
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