European Masters in Language and Speech

University of the Saarland, Saarbrücken

The European Masters in Language and Speech leads to a certificate testifying the fulfilment of specific requirements determined by a consortium of (currently 12) European academic partners. These requirements include attendance and successful completion of accredited courses in certain topics (see below) as well as the writing of a thesis on a selected topic. A period of study abroad, the participation at the EuroMasters Summer School, and a traineeship in industry is highly recommended.
It is important to note that this certificate does not replace an academic degree awarded by a University. The EuroMasters is rather a certificate which is awarded in addition to a first University degree.
Students from Saarbrücken as well as students from abroad can find information below on how the EuroMasters is organised at the Department of Computational Linguistics and Phonetics in Saarbrücken.

This page is still under construction. For more information contact the local EuroMasters co-ordinator

Jürgen Trouvain

Geb. 17.2, Room 5.03, 66041 Saarbrücken
Phone:     +49 - 681 - 302 - 46 94
Fax:         +49 - 681 - 302 - 46 84

Masters Implementation in Saarbrücken

The courses offered in the Department of Computational Linguistics and Phonetics cover to a greater or a lesser extent the contents of the Masters described on the general web site of the Masters. The content areas are:




The responsibility lies with the individual students to organise their course combination, studying abroad, finding a supervisor for the thesis, participating in the EuroMasters Summer School. However, all relevant questions should be discussed with the local coordinator.

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Courses

Below follows a description of courses that cover the requirements for the European Masters. In section A only those courses are listed which are offered on a regular basis. Saarbrücken students who have succesfully completed the courses listed in section A fulfil only partially the requirements for the EuroMasters. However, they can fulfill all requirements by additionally attending courses in Saarbrücken in the areas listed under section B. Students wishing to come from abroad should first find out which courses are on offer during the period for which they wish to be in Saarbrücken.

    A. Courses offered on a regular basis

  1. Introduction to General Linguistics (Einführung in die Allgemeine Linguistik)

    2. Contents: Phonetics & Phonology, Morphology & Syntax, Semantics & Pragmatics
    ECTS (planned): 6
    Coverage: Theoretical Linguistics, Phonetics & Phonology
    Period: each Winter Semester
    Materials: Fromkin & Rodman: An Introduction to Language.

  2. Acoustic Phonetics and Speech Perception (Akustische Phonetik und Sprachperzeption)

    3. Contents: Source-Filter Theory, Acoustic Properties of Speech Sounds, Physiology of Hearing, Speech Perception
    ECTS (planned): 6
    Coverage: Phonetics & Phonology
    Period: each Summer Semester
    Materials: Script based on Borden & Harris: Speech Science Primer. and Clark & Yallop: Introduction to Phonetics & Phonology.

  3. Ear and Transcription Training I + II (Hör- und Transkriptionsübung I + II)

    4. Contents: Ear Training, IPA Symbols, Articulatory Phonetics
    ECTS (planned): 1 each
    Coverage: Phonetics & Phonology
    Period: each Semester
    Materials: -

  4. Intonation (Intonation I)

    5. Contents: Description and Transcription of Melodic Contours - auditory & instrumental. Autosegmental analysis of intonation
    ECTS (planned): 3
    Coverage: Phonetics & Phonology
    Period: each Winter Semester
    Materials: Script with supporting literature: Ladd (1997): Intonational Phonology.

  5. Introduction to Phonetics & Phonology (Einführung in Phonetik und Phonologie)

    6. Contents: Auditive, articulatory and acoustic phonetics, Structuralist, generative and non-linear phonology
    ECTS (planned): 6
    Coverage: Phonetics & Phonology
    Period: each Summer Semester
    Materials: Clark & Yallop: An Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology.

  6. Phonology I: Features, Segments, Syllables (Phonologie I: Merkmale, Segmente, Silben)

    7. Contents: Phonemes and allophones, Syllable structure, Phonological processes, Non-linear phonology
    ECTS (planned): 3
    Coverage: Phonetics & Phonology
    Period: each Winter Semester
    Materials: Spencer: Phonology.

  7. Introduction to Instrumental Phonetics (Instrumentalphonetisches Praktikum)

    8. Contents: Acoustic properties of sounds, Experimental methods and tools ECTS (planned): 3
    Coverage: Phonetics & Phonology
    Period: each Summer Semester
    Materials: Ladefoged, P. (1995): Elements of Acoustic Phonetics.

  8. Symbol Phonetics and Speech Production (Symbolphonetik und Sprachproduktion)

    9. Contents: IPA symbols, Anatomy and physiology of speaking, Phonation, Articulation, Speech production models
    ECTS (planned): 7
    Coverage: Phonetics & Phonology
    Period: each second Winter Semester
    Materials: Script based on Borden & Harris: Speech Science Primer. and Clark & Yallop: Introduction to Phonetics & Phonology.

  9. Introduction to Computational Linguistics (Einführung in die Computerlinguistik)

    10. Contents: what is CL; the methods of CL; the relations to other scientific disciplines; the applications, with presentation of most successful projects
    Period: each Winter Semester
    ECTS (planned): 3
    Coverage: Natural language processing, Human Language Processing, Theoretical Linguistics

  10. Mathematical Foundations of Computational Linguistics I (Mathematische Grundlagen der Computerlinguistik I)

    11. Contents: Basics of: set theory, relations and functions, algebra, propositional and predicate logic;
    Period: each Winter Semester
    ECTS (planned): 7.5 each
    Coverage: Formal and mathematical foundations

  11. Mathematical Foundations of Computational Linguistics II (Mathematische Grundlagen der Computerlinguistik II)

    12. Contents: Formal languages, grammars (regular, c.-f., unrestricted) and automata (Finite, Push-Down, Turing machines)
    Period: each Summer Semester
    ECTS (planned): 7.5 each
    Coverage: Formal and mathematical foundations

  12. Introduction to Semantics (Einführung in die Semantik)

    13. Contents: modal and temporal logic, possible worlds semantics, type theory, lambda abstraction and -conversion, relation between syntactic and semantic structure
    Period: each Winter Semester
    ECTS (planned): 6
    Coverage: Theoretical Linguistics

  13. Introduction to Syntax and Morphology (Einführung in dieSyntax und Morphologie)

    14. Contents: traditional morphology; transformational and non-transformational syntax; syntactic analysis of data Period: each Winter Semester
    ECTS (planned): 6
    Coverage: Theoretical Linguistics

  14. Natural Language Processing with Prolog

    15. Contents: basics of the language; implementation of basic CL algorithms in Prolog
    Period: each Winter Semester
    ECTS (planned): 6
    Coverage: Formal and mathematical foundations

  15. Introduction in Common-LISP

    16. Contents: basics of the language; implementation of basic CL algorithms in Prolog
    Period: each Summer Semester
    ECTS (planned): 6
    Coverage: Formal and mathematical foundations

  16. Grammar Theory (Grammatiktheorie)

    17. Contents: introduction and comparison of basic methodological assumptions of formal; theories of syntax; formal description of basic linguistic phenomena
    Period: each Winter Semester
    ECTS (planned): 6
    Coverage: Theoretical Linguistics

  17. Grammar Formalisms (Grammatikformalismen)

    18. Contents: introduction and comparison of basic formalisms for processing of syntax of natural languages
    Period: each Summer Semester
    ECTS (planned): 6
    Coverage: NLP

  18. Computational Linguistics Algorithms in C++

    19. Contents: introduction into the language; implementation of algorithms for CL
    Period: each Winter Semester
    ECTS (planned): 6
    Coverage: Formal and mathematical foundations

  19. Introduction to Pragmatics and Text Theory (Einführung in die Pragmatik und Texttheorie)

    20. Contents: Discourse structure; speech act theory; text theory; conversational analysis structure; Period: each Summer Semester ECTS (planned): 3 Coverage: Theoretical linguistics

  20. Statistical Methods in Natural Language Processing

    21. Contents: Probability theory; stochastic processes; Markov-chains; Markov models; POS-Tagging; stochastic grammars; Period: each Summer Semester Materials: Charniak, E. (1993): Statistical Language Learning. Krenn & Samuelsson (1996): The Linguist's Guide to Statistics. ECTS (planned): 6 Coverage: Statistical Pattern Classification, Natural Language Processing;

  21. Semantics (Semantik)

    22. Contents: Montague Grammar, Cooper Storage, Discourse Representation Theory, Dynamic Predicate Logic, Event and Lexical Semantics. Period: each Summer Semester ECTS (planned): 6 Coverage: Theoretical Linguistics

    B. Specialised courses offered on a sporadic basis

    Many of the one-off courses involve similar topics on a semi-regular basis although course titles may differ from one semester to another. Areas in which such courses are offered include the following:
  22. Automatic Speech Recognition (Automatische Spracherkennung)

    23. Contents: HMM; phonetic features; neural nets;
    ECTS (planned): 6
    Coverage: LE applications

  23. Speech Synthesis (Einführung in die Sprachsynthese)

    24. Contents: concatenative & formant synthesis; acoustic parameters; experimental phonetic tool;
    ECTS (planned): 6
    Coverage: LE applications

  24. Speech Signal Processing (Programmierkurs Sprachsignalverarbeitung)

    25. Contents: speech digitization, short-time analysis, frame and windows, zero-crossing, autocorrelation, filters, , Fourier transforms, spectrum, cepstrum, linear prediction coefficients, reflection coefficients, F0-estimation algorithms, smoothing, formant estimation, filter banks.
    ECTS (planned): 6
    Coverage: Signal Processing

  25. Psycholinguistics (Psycholinguistik)

    26. Contents: methods of experimental psychology and psycholinguistics; relation competence-performance; sentence parsing; working memory;
    ECTS (planned): 6
    Coverage: Cognitive Models

  26. Language Technology

    27. Contents: Machine Translation; Text Generation; Information Retrieval, Information Extraction;
    ECTS (planned): 6
    Coverage: LE applications
Please check the current course schedule to find more information.

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Coverage of the Contents

Any content area is followed by course name. Please note that a selection from these courses (= often more than one course) cover the content areas as described on the general web site.

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Study Abroad

Possibilities for spending periods abroad for the course work include the two Socrates networks: "Computational Linguistics" and "Phonetics and Speech Communication". Please contact the local Socrates coordinators, Jacques Koreman (Phonetics) and Ivana Kruijff-Korbayova (Computational Linguistics).

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EuroMasters Summer School

The last EuroMasters Summer School 2002took place in Leeuven (Belgium) in July 2002. Have a look to get a flavour!

Former EuroMasters Summer Schools were organised in Brno, Czech Republic ( Summer School 2001) and in Chios, Greece (Summer School 2000).

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Internship

A six-week traineeship in industry or at a research institution is compulsory for CL students, and considered an advantage for Phonetics students. If you need help, contact your study advisor or your professor.

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Thesis

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Last change: 2002, July 15