Universal POS tags
These tags mark the core part-of-speech categories. To distinguish additional lexical and grammatical properties of words, use the universal features.
| 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
The car is green.
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
ADP: adposition
Definition
Adposition is a cover term for prepositions and postpositions. Adpositions belong to a closed set of items that occur before (preposition) or after (postposition) a complement composed of a noun phrase, noun, pronoun, or clause that functions as a noun phrase, and that form a single structure with the complement to express its grammatical and semantic relation to another unit within a clause.
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
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 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
AUX: auxiliary verb
Definition
An auxiliary verb is a verb that accompanies the lexical verb of a verb phrase and expresses grammatical distinctions not carried by the lexical verb, such as person, number, tense, mood, aspect, and voice.
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
CONJ: coordinating conjunction
Definition
A coordinating conjunction is a word that links words or larger constituents without syntactically subordinating one to the other and expresses a semantic relationship between them.
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
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.
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
INTJ: interjection
Definition
An interjection is a word that is used most often as an exclamation or part of an exclamation. It typically expresses an emotional reaction, is not syntactically related to other accompanying expressions, and may include a combination of sounds not otherwise found in the language.
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
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.
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
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.
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
PART: particle
Definition
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
PRON: pronoun
Definition
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
PROPN: proper noun
Definition
A proper noun is a noun (or nominal content word) that is the name (or part of the name) of a specific individual, place, or object.
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
PUNCT: punctuation
Definition
Punctuation marks are non-alphabetical characters and character groups used in many languages to delimit linguistic units in printed text.
Punctuation is not taken to include logograms such as $, %, and §, which are instead tagged as SYM.
Examples
- Period: .
- Comma: ,
- Parentheses: ()
References
SCONJ: subordinating conjunction
Definition
A subordinating conjunction is a conjunction that links constructions by making one of them a constituent of the other. The subordinating conjunction typically marks the incorporated constituent which has the status of a (subordinate) clause.
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
SYM: symbol
Definition
A symbol is a word-like entity that differs from ordinary words by form, function, or both.
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
VERB: verb
Definition
A verb is a member of the syntactic class of words that typically signal events and actions, can constitute a minimal predicate in a clause, and govern the number and types of other constituents which may occur in the clause. Verbs are often associated with grammatical categories like tense, mood, aspect and voice, which can either be expressed inflectionally or using auxilliary verbs or particles.
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
X: other
Definition
The tag X is used for words that for some reason cannot be assigned
a real part-of-speech category.
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