Experiments with Spectral Learning of Latent-Variable PCFGs

Shay B. Cohen, Karl Stratos, Michael Collins, Dean P. Foster, Lyle Ungar

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Latent-variable PCFGs (L-PCFGs) are a highly successful model for natural language parsing. Recent work (Cohen et al., 2012) has introduced a spectral algorithm for parameter estimation of L-PCFGs, which—unlike the EM algorithm—is guaranteed to give consistent parameter estimates (it has PAC-style guarantees of sample complexity). This paper describes experiments using the spectral algorithm. We show that the algorithm provides models with the same accuracy as EM, but is an order of magnitude more efficient. We describe a number of key steps used to obtain this level of performance; these should be relevant to other work on the application of spectral learning algorithms. We view our results as strong empirical evidence for the viability of spectral methods as an alternative to EM.

Original languageAmerican English
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Computational Linguistics for Literature, CLfL 2013 at the 2013 Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics
Subtitle of host publicationHuman Language Technologies, NAACL-HLT 2013
EditorsDavid Elson, Anna Kazantseva, Stan Szpakowicz
PublisherAssociation for Computational Linguistics (ACL)
Pages148-157
Number of pages10
ISBN (Electronic)9781937284473
StatePublished - 2013
Externally publishedYes
Event2nd Workshop on Computational Linguistics for Literature, CLfL 2013 at the 2013 Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies, NAACL-HLT 2013 - Atlanta, United States
Duration: Jun 14 2013 → …

Publication series

NameProceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Computational Linguistics for Literature, CLfL 2013 at the 2013 Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies, NAACL-HLT 2013

Conference

Conference2nd Workshop on Computational Linguistics for Literature, CLfL 2013 at the 2013 Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies, NAACL-HLT 2013
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityAtlanta
Period6/14/13 → …

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Language and Linguistics
  • Linguistics and Language

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