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POS tags

POS tags ja

Open class words Closed class words Other
ADJ ADP PUNCT
ADV AUX SYM
INTJ CONJ X
NOUN DET
PROPN NUM
VERB PART
PRON
SCONJ

ADJ:
adjective

Definition

Adjectives are words that typically modify nouns and specify their properties or attributes. They may also function as predicates, as in

その 車 は 赤い.  “The car is red.”

The ADJ tag is intended for ordinary adjectives only. See DET for determiners and NUM for cardinal numerals.

Nominal adjectives (自由  “free”) are also classified into ADJ, which are a kind of noun but behave like ordinary adjectives in being followed by an auxiliary verb (e.g. だ). In UniDic, this kind of nouns is tagged with noun (common.adjectival)/名詞-普通名詞-形状詞可能. Note that they are tagged NOUN when they are used as nouns (e.g. 自由 を 手に入れる  “gain freedom”).

Japanese has a small group of adnominal words (adnominal) that usually precede noun phrases like adjectives, but do not conjugate. In Universal PoS, th limited number of pronominal adjectives (e.g. あの  “that”, どの  “which”) are classified into determiner DET, but the other adnimonal words are tagged ADJ (e.g. 同じ  “same”, 大きな  “big”).

Examples

  • 赤い  “red”, 大きい  “big” (adjective_i (general) / 形容詞-一般)
  • 必要(+だ)  “necessary”, 簡単(+だ) “easy”(adjectival_noun / 形状詞-一般)
  • 自由(+だ)  “free” (noun(common.adjectival) / 名詞-普通名詞-形状詞可能)
  • 同じ  “same” (adnominal / 連体詞)
  • いろんな  “various” (adnominal / 連体詞)
  • indefinite determiners: ある  “a/one” (adnominal / 連体詞)
  • possessive determiners: 我が  “my” (adnominal / 連体詞)

References

edit ADJ

ADP:
adposition

Definition

ADP for Japanese covers postpositional particles. It corresponds to particle (case) / 助詞-格助詞 and particle (binding) / 助詞-係助詞 in UniDic definition.

Note that some particles (助詞) in Japanese are classified to other Universal PoS classes, such as と (CONJ), て (SCONJ) and ね (PART).

Examples

  • が  nominative case postpositional particle (particle (case) / 助詞-格助詞)
  • を  accusative case postpositional particle (particle (case) / 助詞-格助詞)
  • は  a binding particle mainly used as a topic marker (particle (binding) / 助詞-係助詞)
edit ADP

ADV:
adverb

Definition

Adverbs are words that typically modify verbs for such categories as time, place, direction or manner. They may also modify adjectives and other adverbs, as in とても はっきり  “very clearly” or おそらく 悪い  “probably wrong”.

Note that nouns tagged with noun(common.adverbial)/名詞-普通名詞-副詞可能 in UniDic, which are able to modify verbs and adjectives, are classified into NOUN (e.g. 第一  “first / firstly”, 明日  “tomorrow”).

Examples

  • とても  “very”(adverb / 副詞)
  • うまく  “well”(adverb / 副詞)
  • まさに  “exactly”(adverb / 副詞)
  • totality adverbs: 必ず  “always”(adverb / 副詞)
  • negative adverbs: 決して  “never”(adverb / 副詞)

References

edit ADV

AUX:
auxiliary verb

Definition

The definition of Japanese AUX is different from that in European language focused on modal verbs.
The AUX tag is used for words tagged by auxiliary_verb / 助動詞 in UniDic. In addition, AUX is also used for functional verbs / adjectives tagged by verb (bound) / 動詞-非自立可能 or adjective_i (bound) / 形容詞-非自立可能 when they are followed by a main verb or an adjective.

Examples

  • 食べた  “eat”+PAST (auxiliary_verb / 助動詞) : AUX for past tense marker which follows a `VERB’ “食べ”
  • 勉強する  “study” (verb (bound) / 動詞-非自立可能) : verbify a functional noun
  • 食べている  “be studying” (progressive) (verb (bound) / 動詞-非自立可能) : a functional verb for progressive aspect
  • 食べない  “not study” (negation) (adjective_i (bound) / 形容詞-非自立可能) : a functional adjective for negation
edit AUX

CONJ:
coordinating conjunction

Definition

CONJ in Japanese is tagged for conjunction / 接続詞 in UniDic and postpositional particles to represent coordination.

Examples

The following instances are cooridnative particles and conjunctions for nominal coordination:

  • コーヒー と 牛乳  “cofee and milk” (case (particle) / 助詞-格助詞)
  • コーヒー か 牛乳  “cofee or milk” (case (adverbial) / 助詞-副助詞)
  • コーヒー 及び 牛乳  “cofee and milk” (conjunction / 接続詞)

  • コーヒー あるいは 牛乳  “cofee or milk” (conjunction / 接続詞)

  • そして  “and” (conjunction / 接続詞)
  • しかし  “but” (conjunction / 接続詞)
  • もしくは  “or” (conjunction / 接続詞)
  • 一方  “on the other hand” (conjunction / 接続詞)
edit CONJ

DET:
determiner

Definition

Determiners are words that modify nouns or noun phrases and express the reference of the noun phrase in context. That is, a determiner may indicate whether the noun is referring to a definite or indefinite element of a class, to a closer or more distant element, to an element belonging to a specified person or thing, to a particular number or quantity, etc.

Japanese language do not have articles, and the traditional grammar of Japanese does not have determiners as a word class. There is a small group of adnominal words which are tagged adnominal / 連体詞 (admoninal adjective), some words in the class are correspond to possesive pronoun (e.g. あの  “that”, どの  “which”) and classified as determiner DET, while others are tagged ADJ (e.g. 同じ  “same”, 大きな  “big”).

Examples

  • demonstrative determiners: この “this”, その “that”, あの “that”, どの  “which” (adnominal / 連体詞)
edit DET

INTJ:
interjection

 edit INTJ

NOUN:
noun

Definition

Nouns are a part of speech typically denoting a person, place, thing, animal or idea.

The NOUN tag is intended for common nouns only. See PROPN for proper nouns and PRON for pronouns.

Stems of nominal verbs (e.g. 質問  “question”) are also tagged with NOUN when they are used as nouns (e.g. 質問 が ありません “there is no question”). Note that they are tagged VERB, when they function as verbs in being followed by an auxiliary verb (e.g. する).

Prefixes, suffixes and numeral classifiers (e.g. 匹 of 3匹 の猫 “three cats”) are also classified into NOUN, since they are the main notion of the noun phrases.

Examples

  • 猫  “cat” (noun (common.general) / 名詞-普通名詞-一般)
  • 木  “tree” (noun (common.general) / 名詞-普通名詞-一般)
  • 質問  “question” (noun (common.general) / 名詞-普通名詞-一般)
  • こと  formal noun (noun (common.general) / 名詞-普通名詞-一般)
  • 第一  “first” (noun(common.adverbial)/名詞-普通名詞-副詞可能)
  • 副  社長  “vice president” (prefix / 接頭辞)
  • 付属  品  “accessory / lit. supplementary parts” (suffix / 接尾辞)
  • 5  回  “5 times” (noun (common.counter) / 名詞-普通名詞-助数詞可能)
edit NOUN

NUM:
numeral

Definition

A numeral is a word, functioning most typically as a determiner, adjective or pronoun, that expresses a number and a relation to the number, such as quantity, sequence, frequency or fraction.

Cardinal numerals are convered by NUM, which are tagged with noun(numeral) / 名詞-数詞 in UniDic, including Kanji expressions (e.g. 二十 “20”, 六万 “60,000”).

Note that each numeral is split into one or more word units based on the number of units, (e.g. 二千十四 “2014” is split into three words, _二千 “2000”, 十 “10”　and 四 “4”).

Examples

  • 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 2014, 1000000, 3.14159265359
  • I, II, III, IV, V, MMXIV
  • 零，一，二，三，四，五，二千/十/四

References

edit NUM

PART:
particle

Definition

PART for Japanese covers functional words which are not classified into ADP, CONJ nor SCONJ. Namely, PART corresponds to final postpositional particles, particle(phrase_final / 助詞-終助詞 in UniDic, and suffixes to change the category of phrases.

Examples

  • 良い ね  “good, isn’t it” (particle (phrase\_final) / 助詞-格助詞) : final particles to add some nuance
  • 衝撃 的 だ  “(something is) shocking” (suffix(adjectival\_noun) / 接尾辞-形状詞的) : suffix to make an adjective phrase with a noun (衝撃 “shock”)
edit PART

PRON:
pronoun

Definition

Pronouns are words that substitute for nouns or noun phrases, whose meaning is recoverable from the linguistic or extralinguistic context.

Since Japanese does not have a specific class of posessive personal pronoun, 我が  “my” is classified into ADJ as well as other words in the same class in UniDic, instead of labeling DET or PRON.

Examples

  • personal pronouns (1st person): 私, 我, 拙者, …  “I” (pronoun / 代名詞)
  • personal pronouns (2nd person): あなた, 君, 貴殿，…  “you” (pronoun / 代名詞)
  • personal pronouns (3rd person): 彼 “he”, 彼女 “she” (pronoun / 代名詞)
  • interrogative pronouns:何 “what”, 誰 “who”, いつ “when”, どこ “where” (pronoun / 代名詞)
  • ここ “here”, そこ  “there” (pronoun / 代名詞)
edit PRON

PROPN:
proper noun

Definition

A proper noun is a noun that is the name of a specific individual, place, or object. Note that names of days of week (e.g. 月曜, 日曜) are not considered proper nouns.

Multi-word named entities have internal syntactic structure, which is preserved in the annotation. The headword is usually noun or suffix and there may be other nouns involved. They will be tagged either PROPN or NOUN. For instance, An NE 長谷寺  “Hasedera temple”consists of a proper noun 長谷  “Hase”and an ordinary noun 寺  “temple”.

Examples

  • 京都  “Kyoto” city name (noun(proper.place.general) / 名詞-固有名詞-地名-一般)
  • 鈴木  “Suzuki” family name (noun(proper.name.surname) / 名詞-固有名詞-人名-姓)
edit PROPN

PUNCT:
punctuation

Definition

Punctuation marks are character groups used to delimit linguistic units in printed text. These words are tagged with supplementary_symbol/ 補助記号 in UniDic.

Punctuation is not taken to include logograms such as $, %, and §, which are instead tagged as SYM.

Examples

  • Period: 。, . supplementary_symbol(period) / 補助記号-句点
  • Comma: 、, , supplementary_symbol(comma) / 補助記号-読点
  • Parentheses: 「」, 『』, ()　supplementary_symbol(bracketopen) / 補助記号-括弧開, supplementary_symbol(bracketclose) / 補助記号-括弧閉
  • Middle dot: ・ supplementary_symbol(general) / 補助記号-一般

References

edit PUNCT

SCONJ:
subordinating conjunction

Definition

SCONJ for Japanese are used for words tagged as conjunction / 接続詞, particle (conjunctive) / 助詞-接続助詞 and particle (nominal) / 準体助詞 in UniDic.

Examples

  • 食べ て 寝る  “eat, then sleep” (particle (conjunctive) / 助詞-接続助詞)
  • 食べる の が好き  “(I) like to eat” (particle (nominal) / 助詞-準体助詞): nominal particle “の”
edit SCONJ

SYM:
symbol

Definition

A symbol is a word-like entity that differs from ordinary words by form, function, or both. What makes them different from punctuation　is that they can be substituted by normal words. This involves all currency symbols, e.g. ￥100 is identical to hundres yen. These words are tagged with symbol / 記号 or supplementary_symbol / 補助記号 in UniDic.

Puntuations are classified into PUNCT, while they also have supplementary_symbol / 補助記号 tag, they are distinguished by the subcategories of UniDic POS, e.g. supplementary_symbol (period) / 補助記号-句点.

Mathematical operators form another group of symbols.

Another group of symbols is emoticon and emoji including ascii art symbols tagged with supplementary_symbol(ascii_art.emoticon) / 補助記号-ＡＡ-顔文字 in UniDic.

Examples

  • $, %, §, ©
  • +, −, ×, ÷, =, <, > supplementary_symbol(general) / 補助記号-一般
  • :), (^o^), (゜∀゜) supplementary_symbol(ascii_art.emoticon) / 補助記号-ＡＡ-顔文字
edit SYM

VERB:
verb

Definition

VERB tag is used for words with one of Japanese verb inflection types.
Basically it corresponds to PoS tag verb / 動詞 in UniDic. A VERB consists of the stem and inflection parts as below:

Examples

  • 遊ぶ  “play” (verb (general) / 動詞-一般)
  • 遊ん だ  “play”+PAST : だ is an auxiliary verb AUX, representing past tense.
  • 遊ば ない  “play”+NEG : ない is an auxiliary verb AUX, representing negation.
  • 見 て いる  “see”+PROGRESSIVE : a combination of て CONJ and いる AUX functions as adding progrsssive aspect.
  • 来る  “come”
  • 勉強する  “study”: する is an auxiliary verb AUX, forming a verb noun into a verb.

The differences between VERB tag and UniDic’s verb / 動詞 tag are as follows:

  • The stem of nominal verbs (so-called suru-verbs or サ変動詞) is also tagged as VERB, while in UniDic it is tagged as noun (common.verbal_suru) / 名詞-普通名詞-サ変動詞可能. Note that such a nominal verb is tagged as VERB when it behaves as a verb (typically followed by “する” or “できる”), otherwise is tagged as NOUN (e.g. 勉強 が好きだ “(I) like studying”).
  • VERB is NOT used for non-content (functional) verbs, while they are taged as verb (bound) / 動詞- 非自立可能, e.g. 食べている  “eat”+PROGRESSIVE : such a functional verb (いる) is tagged with AUX.
edit VERB