This is part of archived UD v1 documentation. See http://universaldependencies.org/ for the current version.
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Dependencies

Note: nmod, neg, and punct appear in two places.

Core dependents of clausal predicates
Nominal dep Predicate dep
nsubj csubj
nsubjpass csubjpass
dobj ccomp xcomp
iobj
Non-core dependents of clausal predicates
Nominal dep Predicate dep Modifier word
nmod advcl advmod
    neg
Special clausal dependents
Nominal dep Auxiliary Other
vocative aux mark
discourse auxpass punct
expl cop
Noun dependents
Nominal dep Predicate dep Modifier word
nummod acl amod
appos   det
nmod   neg
Compounding and unanalyzed
compound mwe goeswith
name foreign
Coordination
conj cc punct
Case-marking, prepositions, possessive
case
Loose joining relations
list parataxis remnant
dislocated reparandum
Other
Sentence head Unspecified dependency
root dep

acl: clausal modifier of noun

acl is used for finite and non-finite clauses that modify a noun, including cases of secondary predication. In Norwegian, relative clauses are assigned a language-specific subtype acl:relcl.

The acl relation is also used for optional predicatives.

edit acl

acl:relcl: relative clause

This language-specific relation is used for relative clauses in Norwegian and the acl:relcl relation is assigned to the main predicate of the relative clause. Relative clauses modify a nominal element and are often initiated by the relative pronoun som “that” which is assigned a nominal relation to the main predicate of the relative clause.

The relative pronoun may be omitted when it stands in a non-subject relation to the predicate of the relative clause:

Note that due to the analysis of the copula construction (cop), the main predicate of a relative clause may also be an adjective or even a noun:

edit acl:relcl

advcl: adverbial clause modifier

An adverbial clause modifier is a clause which modifies a verb or other predicate (adjective, etc.), as a modifier not as a core complement. This includes things such as a temporal clause, consequence, conditional clause, purpose clause, etc. The dependent must be clausal (or else it is an advmod) and the dependent is the main predicate of the clause.

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advmod: adverbial modifier

An adverbial modifier of a word is a (non-clausal) adverb or adverbial phrase that serves to modify the meaning of the word.

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amod: adjectival modifier

An adjectival modifier of a noun is any adjectival phrase that serves to modify the meaning of the noun. In Norwegian, adjectival modifiers are placed before the noun they modify.

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appos: appositional modifier

An appositional modifier of a noun is a nominal immediately following the first noun that serves to define or modify that noun.

In Norwegian, it is used also for titles which usually precede their head.

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aux: auxiliary

An auxiliary of a clause is a non-main verb of the clause, e.g., a modal auxiliary, or a form of ha “have” or være “be” in a periphrastic tense. Exception: Auxiliary verb used to construct the passive voice is not labeled aux but auxpass.

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auxpass: passive auxiliary

A passive auxiliary of a clause is a non-main verb of the clause which contains the passive information.

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case: case marking

The case relation is used for any case-marking element which is treated as a separate syntactic word, in Norwegian it is used to mark the relation between a preposition and what is traditionally known as its complement (its head in the UD scheme).

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cc: coordinating conjunction

For more on coordination, see the conj relation. A cc is the relation between the first conjunct and the coordinating conjunction delimiting another conjunct.

A coordinating conjunction may also appear at the beginning of a sentence. This is also called a cc, and it depends on the root predicate of the sentence.

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ccomp: clausal complement

A clausal complement of a verb or adjective is a dependent clause which is a core argument. That is, it functions like an object of the verb, or adjective.

Such clausal complements may be finite or nonfinite. However, if the subject of the clausal complement is controlled the appropriate relation is xcomp.

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compound: compound

For Norwegian the compound relation is used only for verbal particle constructions with the language-specific subtype compound:prt.

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compound:prt: compound:prt

This language-specific relation is used for verbal particles in Norwegian and describes the relation of the particle to its verbal head.

Particles exhibit a number of syntactic properties which sets them apart from regular prepositions. For instance, a pronominal object may intercede the verb and the preposition in the particle case satte den på “put it on”, but not in the case of a regular preposition and its complement *lette den etter “*looked it for”, and only complements of a preposition may occur in an impersonal passive Det ble lett etter den nye boka “It was looked for the new book”, but an object in a particle construction may not *Det ble satt den på “*It was put it on”.

References Kari Kinn, Per Erik Solberg and Pål Kristian Eriksen. “NDT Guidelines for Morphological Annotation”. National Library Tech Report.

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conj: conjunct

A conjunct is the relation between two elements connected by a coordinating conjunction, such as og “and”, eller “or”, etc. We treat conjunctions asymmetrically: The head of the relation is the first conjunct and all the other conjuncts depend on it via the conj relation.

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cop: copula

A copula is the relation between the complement of a copular verb and the copular verb være “to be”. The copula is treated as a dependent of the lexical verb.

This analysis entails that in copula clauses, the main predicate is not verbal, but rather an adjectival or even nominal (as in the above example).

Note that there are occurrences of være “to be” which do not give rise to a copula analysis, such as in cleft constructions (see expl).

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csubj: clausal subject

A clausal subject is a clausal syntactic subject of a clause, i.e., the subject is itself a clause.

When the matrix clause is a copula construction, the head of the csubj may be an adjectival (or even nominal) predicate.

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csubjpass: clausal passive subject

A clausal passive subject is a clausal syntactic subject of a passive clause. In the example below, the clause At de mener alvor “That they are serious” is the csubjpass of the passive verb illustreres “illustrated-PASS”.

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dep: unspecified dependency

A dependency is labeled as dep when a system is unable to determine a more precise dependency relation between two words. This relation is not used for Norwegian.

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det: determiner

The relation determiner (det) holds between a nominal head and its determiner. Most commonly, a word of POS DET will have the relation det and vice versa.

Other parts of speech than DET may in some cases be assigned a determiner relation to a nominal head. For Norwegian the det relation is also used for genitive nouns, like årets “this year’s” and quantity nouns like rekke “number-of”.

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discourse: discourse element

This is used for interjections and other discourse particles and elements, which are not clearly linked to the structure of the sentence except in an expressive way.

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dislocated: dislocated elements

This relation is not used for Norwegian.

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dobj: direct object

A direct object is a nominal which is the (accusative) object of the verbal predicate.

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expl: expletive

This relation captures expletive nominals. These are nominals that appear in an argument position of a predicate but which do not themselves satisfy any of the semantic roles of the predicate. The main predicate of the clause (the verb or predicate adjective or noun) is the governor.

For Norwegian, the expletive element is expressed using the neuter pronoun det “it” and the expl relation is used for both expletive subjects and objects.

Presentational construction

In Norwegian expletives occur in the presentational construction, which involves an expletive subject, an active verb and an indefinite subject (en debatt “a debate” in the example below).

Impersonal passive

Norwegian employs the impersonal passive construction, where there is an expletive subject and the underlying subject is unexpressed.

Clause-anticipating constructions

These constructions contain a finite or non-finite clause which semantically may be regarded as the subject, but where the subject position is occupied by an expletive.

We also find clause-anticipating constructions with expletive objects.

Clefts

Clefts are quite common in Norwegian. They contain an expletive subject, a form of være “to be” and a relative clause. Note that in clefts we do not adopt a copula analysis of the verb være “er”.

References

Kari Kinn, Per Erik Solberg and Pål Kristian Eriksen. NDT Guidelines for Morphological Annotation”. National Library Tech Report.

~~~

edit expl

foreign: foreign words

We use foreign to label sequences of foreign words.

edit foreign

goeswith: goes with

This relation links two parts of a word that are separated in text that is not well edited. It is used in Norwegian for elements that constitute syntactic errors and that otherwise are difficult to assign a relation in the analysis.

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iobj: indirect object

The indirect object of a verb is any nominal phrase that is a core argument of the verb but is not its subject or direct object. The iobj relation presupposes a dobj argument of the same word and is only used for nominal arguments. Note that nominals with a preposition such as til “to” which are semantically similar to indirect object in the expression of a recipient role are not analyzed as iobj.

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list: list

The list relation is not used for Norwegian.

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mark: marker

A marker is the word introducing a subordinate clause and the marker is a dependent of the subordinate clause head. In Norwegian it is used for both finite and non-finite subordinate clauses.

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mwe: multi-word expression

The mwe relation is not used for Norwegian.

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name: name

The name relation is used for proper nouns constituted of multiple nominal elements. Names are annotated in a flat, head-initial structure, in which all words in the name modify the first one using the name label.

A flat analysis is also adopted for names where there is a clear syntactic analysis (unlike the UD guidelines) due to the automated conversion procedure.

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neg: negation modifier

The negation modifier is the relation between a negation word and the word it modifies. For Norwegian, it is employed for the negative determiner ingen “no” and the negative adverb ikke “not”.

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nmod: nominal modifier

The nmod relation is used for nominal modifiers. They depend either on another noun (group “noun dependents”) or on a predicate (group “non-core dependents of clausal predicates”).

nmod is a noun (or noun phrase) functioning as a non-core (oblique) argument or adjunct. This means that it functionally corresponds to an adverbial when it attaches to a verb, adjective or other adverb. But when attaching to a noun, it corresponds to an attribute.

nmod is used for nouns modified by a preposition.

The nmod relation is also used for temporal modifiers expressed as nominals:

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nsubj: nominal subject

A nominal subject is a nominal phrase which is the subject of a clause. The governor of the nsubj relation might not always be a verb: when the verb is a copular verb, the root of the clause is the complement of the copular verb, which can be an adjective or noun.

Note that in cases where there is an expletive subject (expl), the nsubj relation is used to express the potential/postposed subject:

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nsubjpass: passive nominal subject

A passive nominal subject is a noun phrase which is the syntactic subject of a passive clause. In Norwegian, the passive subject is the dependent of a verb with passive marking or a participle with a passive auxiliary attached.

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nummod: numeric modifier

A numeric modifier of a noun is any number phrase that serves to modify the meaning of the noun with a quantity.

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parataxis: parataxis

The parataxis relation is a relation between a word (often the main predicate of a sentence) and other elements, such as a sentential parenthetical or a clause after a “:” or a “;”, placed side by side without any explicit coordination, subordination, or argument relation with the head word.

The Norwegian parataxis relation is largely used for reported speech and some other parentheticals.

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punct: punctuation

Tokens with the relation punct always attach to content words (except in cases of ellipsis) and can never have dependents. Since punct is not a normal dependency relation, the usual criteria for determining the head word do not apply. Instead, we use the following principles:

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remnant: remnant in ellipsis

The remnant relation is used to provide a satisfactory treatment of ellipsis. In Norwegian, the remnant element is attached to the main predicate of the clause (and not to the correlate in the preceding context).

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reparandum: overridden disfluency

This relation is not used for Norwegian.

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root: root

The root grammatical relation points to the root of the sentence.

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vocative: vocative

This relation is not used in Norwegian.

edit vocative

xcomp: open clausal complement

An open clausal complement (xcomp) of a verb or an adjective is a predicative or clausal complement without its own subject. The reference of the subject is necessarily determined by an argument external to the xcomp. This is often referred to as obligatory control.

In Norwegian xcomp is used for infinitival clauses

This relation is also used for cases of obligatory secondary predication

xcomp is also used for copula-like verbs such as bli “become”, kalle “call”, hete “named” in Norwegian.

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