Best path to get into natural language processing

Question

Currently I'm a PHP programmer and I would like to know the best way to learn about NLP, from theory to practice. Doesn't matter the language.

For example:

Theory

1. Firt learn the Basic grammar
2. Then learn about first order logic, Description logic etc.

Technical

1. Learn PROLOG
2. Learn about openCyc
3. For web applications you can use prolog and python with the library pylog.

Is it possible to create a topic based tutorial?

Answer 1

Get a good book. I recommend Speech and Language Processing by Jurafsky and Martin. Learn Java, or better, Python, and one or more of the many toolkits for NLP.

If you want Prolog, try Prolog and Natural Language Analysis, but do realize that the logic-oriented approach has almost entirely gone out of favor in the last two decades because it proved too brittle and too expensive. Statistical methods and machine learning are everything now, and approaches that combine logic and statistics are really cutting-edge research.