Logic List Mailing Archive

Postdoctoral position (3y) in computational linguistics, Utrecht (The Netherlands)

3-year Postdoc position in computational linguistics, starting Fall 2019

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 consists of the following three subprojects. P1 and P2 are 
currently in progress. The present job vacancy concerns P3.

P1.  *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.

P2.  *Typelogical grammar induction for vector-based semantics from Dutch 
treebank data*. Whereas P1 develops a language-independent framework for 
compositional distributional semantics, the present subproject 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.

P3.  *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 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 for 16/07/2019 below.

https://www.uu.nl/en/organisation/faculty-of-humanities/about-the-faculty/vacancies

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

--Michael Moortgat
Professor of Computational Linguistics
Utrecht Institute of Linguistics - OTS
Trans 10, 3512 JK Utrecht
+31 30 2536043
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