LIGN 117. The Language Code (4 units)
Link to catalog page: https://catalog.ucsd.edu/courses/LING.html#lign117
Description
Natural languages are codes used for communication. This course examines the design features of language that allow them to satisfy two desiderata: communicative effectiveness and efficiency. Topics covered include elementary probability theory (conditional probability; Bayes’ Rule), binary representations, elementary information theory (entropy), data compression, error correction, n-gram language models, noisy channel models, and large language models (e.g., ChatGPT).
Prerequisite courses
LIGN 117 has no prerequisite courses.
Successor courses
No courses have LIGN 117 as a prerequisite.