Mark Gawron
The primary goal of the course is to acquaint students with a basic
set of mathematical ideas that happen to be of
use to linguists, but which are also useful in
other disciplines, including computer science,
philosophy of language, philosophy of science, and
information science.
The principle areas fall under the general heading of discrete
mathematics, roughly the mathematics of qualitative
rather than quantitative distinctions. We will begin by
looking at the mathematics of collections of things (set
theory) and
we will worry about when two collections have
the same number of objects, but we will not care
very much what that number is. We will
move on to mathematical systems in which one
thing can be bigger than another, but we will
not care by how much (lattice theory). And we will generalize
the notion of mathematical operation beyond
the realm of things you may be used to from
your knowledge of arithmetic, looking
at operations like rotate, flip,
and father-of.
We will then move on to propositional logic
and automata theory, taking a mathematical
look at simple kinds of reasoning that computers
can do. We will sometimes illustrate ideas with
linguistic ideas, but our use of
these ideas will presuppose only
knowledge of language, not linguistics.
Mathematical Methods in Linguistics.
1993. Partee, Barbara, Ter Meulen, Alice, and Wall, Robert E.
Wall. Kluwer. Netherlands.
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There will be exercises
from the text as well as
some concocted elsewhere,
for the purpose of improving our set of
examples.
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The general structure of the course is not well-suited to
late assignments. Assignment solutions will be discussed
in detail on the day they are turned in, and thus students
who turn assignments in late will be at an advantage.
However, to allow for some
flexibility, late assignments will receive partial
credit. Here is the lateness policy:
- Up to one week late: 50% credit for assignment
- More than one week late: not accepted
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Group work is encouraged on the assignments.
The midterm and final should be completed
without any help.
When turning in collaborative assignments,
your collaborators should be identified on your
paper.
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Attendance is not a formal part of your grade.
However, be aware that hints on how to solve
problems on the assignments, the
midterms, and the final
are handed out liberally in class.
These hints will not be posted on
the web page.
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Prequisite: None.
Grading will be based on exercises/projects a
take-home midterm and final.
- midterm 30%
- final 30%
- Exercises: 40%
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Course Outline
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~gawron/mathling
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Mailing address:
Jean Mark Gawron
Department of Linguistics and Oriental Languages
San Diego State University
5500 Campanile Drive
San Diego, CA 92182-7727
Telephone: (619) 594-0252
Office Hours: Tu Th 16:00-17:30, BAM 321
