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This page pertains to UD version 2.

orphan: orphan in ellipsis

The orphan relation is used to provide a satisfactory treatment of certain instances of ellipsis where simple promotion would result in unnatural and misleading dependency relation (in the case of gapping and stripping, where a predicational or verbal head gets elided).

# visual-style 11 14 orphan color:blue
1	իւր	իւր	DET	_	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Poss|Style=Arch	2	det:poss	_	_
2	բնակութիւնն	բնակութիւն	NOUN	_	Animacy=Nhum|Case=Nom|Definite=Def|Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
3	հանապազ	հանապազ	ADV	_	_	6	advmod	_	_
4	ի	ի	ADP	_	AdpType=Prep	6	case	_	_
5	կաղնի	կաղնի	NOUN	_	Animacy=Nhum|Case=Dat|Definite=Ind|Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	_
6	ծառն	ծառ	NOUN	_	Animacy=Nhum|Case=Nom|Definite=Def|Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
7	լինի	լինիլ	AUX	_	Aspect=Imp|Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Polarity=Pos|Style=Arch|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	_	11	punct	_	_
9	եւ	եւ	CCONJ	_	_	11	cc	_	_
10	իւր	իւր	DET	_	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Poss|Style=Arch	11	det:poss	_	_
11	հոտն	հոտ	NOUN	_	Animacy=Nhum|Case=Nom|Definite=Def|Number=Sing	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	՝	՝	PUNCT	_	_	14	punct	_	_
13	հոտած	հոտել	VERB	_	Aspect=Perf|Polarity=Pos|Subcat=Intr|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Mid	14	acl	_	_
14	դժնիկ	դժնիկ	NOUN	_	Animacy=Nhum|Case=Nom|Definite=Ind|Number=Sing	11	orphan	_	_

In this example, the subject հոտն “odor” is promoted to the head position in the second conjunct. Attaching the predicate (without copula) դժնիկ “buckthorn” to the subject is necessary to preserve the integrity of the clause, but using the standard relation nsubj would be misleading because դժնիկ “buckthorn” can’t be the predicate of հոտն “odor” without the copula. Therefore, the orphan relation is used to indicate that this is a non-standard attachment. By contrast, the coordinating conjunction եւ “and” performs essentially the same function as in the non-elliptical case and therefore retains its normal relation cc.


orphan in other languages: [axm] [bm] [cop] [cs] [de] [el] [en] [fi] [fr] [fro] [ga] [gsw] [hy] [it] [kk] [lt] [no] [pcm] [pt] [qpm] [ro] [ru] [sl] [sv] [swl] [tr] [u] [vi] [xcl] [yue] [zh]