Evolution of Natural Language Processing : Describing basics of NLP to non-basic users

Abstract

Natural language processing (NLP) is a major area of artificial intelligence research, which in its turn serves as a field of application and interaction of a number of other traditional AI areas. Until recently, the focus in AI applications in NLP was on knowledge representation, logical reasoning, and constraint satisfaction - first applied to semantics and later to the grammar. In the last decade, a dramatic shift in the NLP research has led to the prevalence of very large-scale applications of statistical methods, such as machine learning and data mining. Naturally, this also opened the way to the learning and optimization methods that constitute the core of modern AI, most notably genetic algorithms and neural networks. In this paper we give an overview of the current trends in NLP and discuss the possible applications of traditional AI techniques and their combination in this fascinating area.