Universal POS tags

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

Note that there are words that may be traditionally called numerals in some languages (e.g. Czech) but they are treated as adjectives in our universal tagging scheme. In particular, ordinal numerals (more precisely adjectival ordinal numerals, because Czech has also adverbial ones) behave both morphologically and syntactically as adjectives and are tagged ADJ.

Note that participles are word forms that may share properties and usage of adjectives and verbs. Depending on language and context, they may be classified as either VERB or ADJ.

Examples

• big
• old
• green
• incomprehensible
• first, second, third

References

• Loos, Eugene E., et al. 2003. Glossary of linguistic terms: What is an adjective?
• Wikipedia

In many languages, adpositions can take the form of fixed multiword expressions, such as in spite of, because of, thanks to. The component words are then still tagged according to their basic use (in is ADP, spite is NOUN, etc.) and their status as multiword expressions are accounted for in the syntactic annotation.

Note that in Germanic languages, some prepositions may also function as verbal particles, as in give in or hold on. They are still tagged ADP and not PART.

Examples

• in
• to
• during

References

• Loos, Eugene E., et al. 2003. Glossary of linguistic terms: What is an adposition?
• Wikipedia

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 very briefly or arguably wrong.

There is a closed subclass of pronominal adverbs that refer to circumstances in context, rather than naming them directly; similarly to pronouns, these can be categorized as interrogative, relative, demonstrative etc. Pronominal adverbs also get the ADV part-of-speech tag but they are differentiated by additional features.

Note that in Germanic languages, some adverbs may also function as verbal particles, as in write down or end up. They are still tagged ADV and not PART.

Note that there are words that may be traditionally called numerals in some languages (e.g. Czech) but they are treated as adverbs in our universal tagging scheme. In particular, adverbial ordinal numerals ([cs] poprvé “for the first time”) and multiplicative numerals (e.g. once, twice) behave syntactically as adverbs and are tagged ADV.

Note that there are verb forms such as transgressives or adverbial participles that share properties and usage of adverbs and verbs. Depending on language and context, they may be classified as either VERB or ADV.

Examples

• very
• well
• exactly
• tomorrow
• up, down
• interrogative adverbs: where, when, how, why
• demonstrative adverbs: here, there, now, then
• indefinite adverbs: somewhere, sometime, anywhere, anytime
• totality adverbs: everywhere, always
• negative adverbs: nowhere, never

References

• Loos, Eugene E., et al. 2003. Glossary of linguistic terms: What is an adverb?
• Wikipedia

Modal verbs may count as auxiliaries in some languages (English). In other languages their behavior is not too different from the main verbs and they are thus tagged VERB. Copulas also stay with main verbs.

Note that not all languages have grammaticalized auxiliary verbs, and even where they exist the dividing line between full verbs and auxiliary verbs can be expected to vary between languages. Exactly which verbs are counted as AUX should be part of the language-specific documentation.

Examples

• Tense auxiliaries: has (done), is (doing), will (do)
• Passive auxiliaries: was (done), got (done)
• Modal auxiliaries: should (do), must (do)

References

• Loos, Eugene E., et al. 2003. Glossary of linguistic terms: What is an auxiliary verb?
• Wikipedia

For subordinating conjunctions, see SCONJ.

Examples

• and
• or
• but

References

• Loos, Eugene E., et al. 2003. Glossary of linguistic terms: What is a coordinating conjunction?
• Wikipedia

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.

Note that the DET tag includes (pronominal) quantifiers (words like many, few, several), which are included among determiners in some languages but may belong to numerals in others. However, cardinal numerals in the narrow sense (one, five, hundred) are not tagged DET even though some authors would include them in quantifiers. Cardinal numbers have their own tag NUM.

Also note that the notion of determiners is unknown in grammars of some languages (e.g. Czech); words equivalent to English determiners may be traditionally classified as pronouns and/or numerals in these languages. In order to annotate the same thing the same way across languages, the words satisfying our definition of determiners should be tagged DET in these languages as well.

For instance, [en] this is either pronoun (I saw this yesterday.) or determiner (I saw this car yesterday.) Its Czech translation, [cs] tohle, is traditionally called pronoun in Czech grammar, regardless of context. To make the annotation parallel across languages, it should be now tagged PRON in Tohle jsem viděl včera. and DET in Tohle auto jsem viděl včera.

Usually a nominal allows only one DET modifier, but there are occasional cases of addeterminers, which appear outside the usual determiner, such as [en] all in all the children survived. In such cases, both all and the are given the POS DET.

Examples

• articles (a closed class indicating definiteness, specificity or givenness): a, an, the
• possessive determiners: my, your, his, her, its, our, their
• demonstrative determiners: this as in I saw this car yesterday.
• interrogative determiners: which as in “Which car do you like?”
• relative determiners: which as in “I wonder which car you like.”
• quantity/quantifier determiners: indefinite any, universal: all, and negative no as in “We have no cars available.”

References

• Loos, Eugene E., et al. 2003. Glossary of linguistic terms: What is a determiner?
• Wikipedia

Note that words primarily belonging to another part of speech retains their original category when used in exclamations. For example, God is a NOUN even in exclamatory uses.

As a special case of interjections, we recognize feedback particles such as yes, no, uhuh, etc.

Examples

• psst
• ouch
• bravo
• hello

References

• Loos, Eugene E., et al. 2003. Glossary of linguistic terms: What is an interjection?
• Wikipedia

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

Note that some verb forms such as gerunds and infinitives may share properties and usage of nouns and verbs. Depending on language and context, they may be classified as either VERB or NOUN.

Examples

• girl
• cat
• tree
• air
• beauty

References

• Loos, Eugene E., et al. 2003. Glossary of linguistic terms: What is a noun?
• Wikipedia

Note that cardinal numerals are covered by NUM whether they are used as determiners or not (as in Windows Seven) and whether they are expressed as words (four), digits (4) or Roman numerals (IV). Other words functioning as determiners (including quantifiers such as many and few) are tagged DET.

Note that there are words that may be traditionally called numerals in some languages (e.g. Czech) but which are not tagged NUM. Such non-cardinal numerals belong to other parts of speech in our universal tagging scheme, based mainly on syntactic criteria: ordinal numerals are adjectives (first, second, third) or adverbs ([cs] poprvé “for the first time”), multiplicative numerals are adverbs (once, twice) etc.

Examples

• 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 2014, 1000000, 3.14159265359
• one, two, three, seventy-seven
• I, II, III, IV, V, MMXIV

References

• Loos, Eugene E., et al. 2003. Glossary of linguistic terms: What is a numeral?
• Wikipedia: Numeral

Particles are function words that must be associated with another word or phrase to impart meaning and that do not satisfy definitions of other universal parts of speech (e.g. adpositions, coordinating conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions or auxiliary verbs). Particles may encode grammatical categories such as negation, mood, tense etc. Particles are normally not inflected, although exceptions may occur.

Note that the PART tag does not cover so-called verbal particles in Germanic languages, as in give in or end up. These are adpositions or adverbs by origin and are tagged accordingly ADP or ADV. Separable verb prefixes in German are treated analogically.

Note that not all function words that are traditionally called particles in Japanese automatically qualify for the PART tag. Some of them do, e.g. the question particle か / ka. Others (e.g. に / ni, の / no) are parallel to adpositions in other languages and should thus be tagged ADP.

Examples

• Possessive marker: [en] ‘s
• Negation particle: [en] not; [de] nicht
• Question particle: [ja] か / ka (adding this particle to the end of a clause turns the clause into a question); [tr] mu
• Sentence modality: [cs] ať, kéž, nechť (Let’s do it! If only I could do it over. May you have an enjoyable stay!)
• Indeclinable aspectual or tense particles: [zh] 了 / le

References

• Loos, Eugene E., et al. 2003. Glossary of linguistic terms: What is a particle?
• Wikipedia

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

Pronouns under this definition function like nouns. Note that some languages traditionally extend the term pronoun to words that substitute for adjectives. Such words are not tagged PRON under our universal scheme. They are tagged as determiners in order to annotate the same thing the same way across languages.

For instance, [en] this is either pronoun (I saw this yesterday.) or determiner (I saw this car yesterday.) Its Czech translation, [cs] tohle, is traditionally called pronoun in Czech grammar, regardless of context (the notion of determiners does not exist in Czech grammar). To make the annotation parallel across languages, it should be now tagged PRON in Tohle jsem viděl včera. and DET in Tohle auto jsem viděl včera.

Examples

• personal pronouns: I, you, he, she, it, we, they
• reflexive pronouns: myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, theirselves
• demonstrative pronouns: this as in I saw this yesterday.
• interrogative pronouns: who, what as in What do you think?
• relative pronouns: who, what as in I wonder what you think. (Note, however, that some relative clause introducing words, such as [en] that are better analyzed as subordinating conjunctions (otherwise known as “complementizers” in the literature), and so are tagged as SCONJ.)
• indefinite pronouns: somebody, something, anybody, anything
• totality pronouns: everybody, everything
• negative pronouns: nobody, nothing

References

• Loos, Eugene E., et al. 2003. Glossary of linguistic terms: What is a pronoun?
• Wikipedia

Note that PROPN is only used for the subclass of nouns that are used as names and that often exhibit special syntactic properties (such as occurring without an article in the singular in English). When other phrases or sentences are used as names, the component words retain their original tags. For example, in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Cat is NOUN, on is ADP, a is DET, etc.

A fine point is that it is not uncommon to regard words that are etymologically adjectives or participles as proper nouns when they appear as part of a multiword name that overall functions like a proper noun, for example in the Yellow Pages, United Airlines or Thrall Manufacturing Company. This is certainly the practice for the English Penn Treebank tag set.

Acronyms of proper nouns, such as UN and NATO, should be tagged PROPN. Even if they contain numbers (as in various product names), they are tagged PROPN and not SYM: 130XE, DC10, DC-10. However, if the token consists entirely of digits (like 7 in Windows 7), it is tagged NUM.

Examples

• Mary, John
• London
• NATO, HBO

References

• Loos, Eugene E., et al. 2003. Glossary of linguistic terms: What is a proper noun?
• Wikipedia

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

Examples

• Period: .
• Comma: ,
• Parentheses: ()

References

• Wikipedia

We follow Loos et al. 2003 in recognizing these three subclasses as subordinating conjunctions:

• Complementizers, like [en] that or if
• Adverbial clause introducers, like [en] when, since, or before (when introducing a clause not a nominal)
• Relativizers, like [he] še. (Note that these words, which simply introduce a relative caluse, and normally don’t inflect, need to be distinguished from relative or resumptive pronouns, which have a nominal function within the relative clause and which we analyze as PRON.)

For coordinating conjunctions, see CONJ.

Examples

• that as in I believe that he will come.
• if
• while

References

• Loos, Eugene E., et al. 2003. Glossary of linguistic terms: What is a subordinating conjunction?
• Wikipedia

Many symbols are or contain special non-alphanumeric characters, similarly to punctuation. What makes them different from punctuation is that they can be substituted by normal words. This involves all currency symbols, e.g. $ 75 is identical to seventy-five dollars.

Mathematical operators form another group of symbols.

Another group of symbols is emoticons and emoji.

Strings that consists entirely of alphanumeric characters are not symbols but they may be proper nouns: 130XE, DC10; others may be tagged PROPN (rather than SYM) even if they contain special characters: DC-10. Similarly, abbreviations for single words are not symbols but are assigned the part of speech of the full form. For example, Mr. (mister), kg (kilogram), km (kilometer), Dr (Doctor) should be tagged nouns. Acronyms for proper names such as UN and NATO should be tagged as proper nouns.

Characters used as bullets in itemized lists (•, ‣) are not symbols, they are punctuation.

Examples

• $, %, §, ©
• +, −, ×, ÷, =, <, >
• :), ♥‿♥, 😝
• john.doe@universal.org, http://universaldependencies.org/, 1-800-COMPANY

Note that the VERB tag covers main verbs (content verbs) and copulas but it does not cover auxiliary verbs, for which there is the AUX tag. Modal verbs may be considered VERB or AUX, depending on their behavior in the given language. Language-specific documentation should specify which verbs are tagged AUX in which contexts.

Note that participles are word forms that may share properties and usage of adjectives and verbs. Depending on language and context, they may be classified as either VERB or ADJ.

Note that some verb forms such as gerunds and infinitives may share properties and usage of nouns and verbs. Depending on language and context, they may be classified as either VERB or NOUN.

Note that there are verb forms such as transgressives or adverbial participles that share properties and usage of adverbs and verbs. Depending on language and context, they may be classified as either VERB or ADV.

Examples

• run, eat
• runs, ate
• running, eating

References

• Loos, Eugene E., et al. 2003. Glossary of linguistic terms: What is a verb?
• Wikipedia

A special usage of X is for cases of code-switching where it is not possible (or meaningful) to analyze the intervening language grammatically (and where the dependency relation foreign is typically used in the syntactic analysis). This usage does not extend to ordinary loan words which should be assigned a normal part-of-speech. For example, in he put on a large sombrero, sombrero is an ordinary NOUN.

Examples

• And then he just xfgh pdl jklw