Disentangling syntactics, semantics, and pragmatics in natural language processing

Abstract

It has been my utmost privilege to be given this opportunity to pursue a Ph.D degree.First, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Prof. Erik Cambria for his support and guidance throughout my Ph.D candidature. It is with his warm encouragement that I found the courage and confidence to pursue a Ph.D degree.Next, I would like to thank my co-supervisor, Dr Rui Mao, for his patient guidance.His insights and advice played a vital role in orientating my research direction and raising the quality of my works. I deeply appreciate his efforts in helping me with my Ph.D project.I would also like to thank my fellow Sentic Team members Mengshi Ge, Luyao Zhu, Jinjie Ni, Zonglin Yang, Kai He, Tom Yang, etc., for their friendship.Last but not the least, I owe enormous gratitude to my parents. The achievements in this thesis would not have come to be if not for their love, care, and encouragement. Special thanks goes to my long-time friends Wenrui Li, Qiyu Zhong, and Zhixin Xu, who lifted my spirit in times of stress and anxiety with compassion and killer memes.