home edit page issue tracker

UD for Middle Armenian

Tokenization and Word Segmentation

• Words are generally delimited by whitespace or punctuation.
• According to typographical rules, many punctuation marks are attached to a neighboring word. We always tokenize them as separate tokens (words); this holds even for abbreviations such as թու. “year” (two tokens).
• Words, containing internal punctuation (e.g. question, exclamation, emphasis and Middle Armenian abbreviation marks, contracted forms with an apostrophe), as in ինչո՞ւ = ինչու + ՞ “why?”, ‘ւ = ու/եւ, թ’ = թէ are treated as multi-word tokens and segmented to individual syntactic words. For more details, see tokenization.

Morphology

Tags

This is an overview only. For more detailed discussion and examples, see the list of Middle Armenian POS tags and Middle Armenian features.

• Middle Armenian uses the 17 universal part-of-speech tags.
• PRON is used for pronouns functioning as nominal heads, while pronominal modifiers of nouns are generally tagged DET. Traditional grammatical classifications do not always make this distinction.
• Middle Armenian has prepositions, postpositions, and ambipositional adpositions (ADP). Some multiword expressions have an external syntactic category represented by ExtPos, while their component words retain their own UPOS tags.
• Middle Armenian has several auxiliary verbs (AUX) (եմ/em, լինիմ/linim “be”, ունիմ/ownim “have”, կամ/kam “exist”) and mood auxiliaries (կու/kow “will”, պիտի/piti “must/will”, կամել/kamel “intend, should be”). The auxiliary եմ/em is used in the following constructions:
  • The copula with non-verbal predicates.
  • Periphrastic tenses:
    • present and imperfect resultative (present form of եմ + resultative participle of the main verb; imperfect form of եմ + resultative participle of the main verb),
    • present and imperfect past (present form of եմ + past participle of the main verb; imperfect form of եմ + past participle of the main verb)
    • present and imperfect perfect (present form of եմ + perfect participle of the main verb; imperfect form of եմ + perfect participle of the main verb)
    • present and imperfect future (present form of եմ + future participle of the main verb; imperfect form of եմ + future participle of the main verb),
    • periphrastic negated present and imperfect tenses of indicative and conditional moods (share the same form) (negated present or imperfect form of եմ + connegative form of the main verb),
• Periphrastic “secondary compound tenses” are formed with any form of լինիմ/linim + resultative and perfect participles of the main verb). Note, that the aorist and the present and imperfect indicative (subjunctive) forms of the verb լինիլ/linil (լինալ/linal) are analyzed as lexical verbs whenever they occur with nominal predicates (nouns, adjectives, etc.), and as auxiliaries only when they combine with participles.
• Periphrastic causative is formed with any form of տալ/tal + infinitive of the main verb).
• Durative aspect is expressed with the finite forms of the existentials ունիմ/ownim “have”, կամ/kam “exist” in combination with resultative, perfect and past participles of the lexical verb.
• There are three main (de)verbal forms, distinguished by the UPOS tag and the value of the VerbForm feature:
  • Infinitive Inf, tagged VERB or AUX.
  • Finite verb Fin, tagged VERB or AUX.
  • Participle Part, tagged VERB or AUX (in so-called “secondary compound tenses”).

Nominal Features

• The main Number values are Sing and Plur. The following parts of speech inflect for number: NOUN, PROPN, PRON, VERB, AUX (finite).
  • Selected nouns are plurale tantum (Ptan): they have a morphologically plural form but refer to a single entity or a natural set of entities, such as paired body parts and similar items.
• Case has 6 possible values: Nom, Acc, Gen, Dat, Abl, Ins. It occurs with the nominal words, i.e., NOUN, PROPN, PRON, DET, and inflected infinitives. Note, that Gen occurs only with pronouns and determiners.
• The two main values of the Definite feature are Def and Ind. The following parts of speech inflect for definitness: NOUN, PROPN, PRON. Infinitives also receive the definiteness feature.
• Degree applies to adjectives (ADJ) and some adverbs (ADV) and has one of three possible values: Pos, Cmp, Sup.
• NameType is used to distinguish types of named entities.

Verbal Features

• VerbForm distinguishes the major finite and non-finite verbal forms; Mood, Tense, Aspect, and Voice describe their relevant grammatical categories.
• Subcat distinguishes transitive (Tran) and intransitive (Intr) verbal lexemes.
• Verbs have one of six values of Aspect: Dur, Imp, Iter, Perf, Prog or Prosp.
  • Note, that in Middle Armenian iterative is considered as a lexical feature of verbs, thus they have morphologically related not iterative counterparts, but it is not a regular system and the two verbs are represented by different lemmas. We mark them as biaspectual.
• Finite verbs always have one of five values of Mood: Cnd, Imp, Ind, Nec or Sub.
  • The necessitative mood is used with the necessitative auxiliary պիտի/piti “must/will” or present-tense forms of the verb կամել/kamel “intend, should be” such as կամիմ/kamim, կամիս/kamis, կամի/kami, etc. The subjunctive finite form of the main verb, that is needed to form a periphrastic necessitative, is not marked with this feature.
• The present and imperfect tenses of the indicative mood that are formed with the auxiliary կու (կ, կոյ)/kow (k, koy) are formally identical to the corresponding conditional forms. They cannot be distinguished without context. The negative forms of the present and imperfect tenses of the indicative (as well as the conditional) mood exhibit variation in their formation. Besides the bound negative morpheme չ-/č-, the negation of indicative and conditional moods is formed periphrastically using the special form of main verb (traditionally called negative participle) and negated forms of the auxiliary եմ/em (չեմ/čem, չես/čes, չի/či etc. “not to be”). The main verb is marked as Connegative.
• Verbs in indicative mood always have one of three values of Tense: mainly Past and for auxilaries and some content verbs Pres or Imp.
  • Imperative and necessitative forms do not have the Tense feature (note that imperfect and present necessitatives are distinguished analytically).
  • Subjunctve and conditional forms have one of the Tense=Imp or Tense=Pres features, which are formally imperfect or present, but semantically future.
• There are five values of the Voice feature: Act, Cau, Mid, Pass, Rcp. Active and causative verbs have Subcat=Tran, the other three Subcat=Intr.

Polarity

• Polarity has two values, Pos and Neg, and applies primarily to verbs (VERB, AUX) that can be negated using the bound morpheme չ-//č-.
• Occasionally ոչ occurs as an independent negation particle (PART) and is marked with Polarity=Neg. The Polarity=Neg feature is also used with the necessitative mood particle (չ)պիտի/(č)piti, and the prohibitive imperative particle մի/mi.
• In periphrastic negative constructions of the indicative and conditional moods, the negative auxiliary is marked with ՝Polarity=Neg՝, while the lexical verb is marked with ՝Connegative=Yes՝. These features apply to different components of the construction and are not interchangeable.

Pronouns, Determiners, Quantifiers

• PronType is used with pronouns (PRON), determiners (DET) and adverbs (ADV).
• NumType is used with numerals (NUM), adjectives (ADJ) and adverbs (ADV).
• The Poss feature marks possessive personal determiners (e.g. իմ “my”).
• The Reflex feature marks reflexive pronouns (իրեն/iren “himself/herself/itself”, իրենց/irencʼ “themselves”) and determiners (իր/ir “his/her/its own”, իրենց/irencʼ “their own”). It is used together with PronType=Prs.
• Person is a lexical feature of personal pronouns (PRON) and has three values, 1, 2 and 3. With personal possessive determiners (DET), the feature actually encodes the person of the possessor. Person is not marked on other types of pronouns and on nouns, although they can almost always be interpreted as the 3rd person.
  • As a cross-reference to subject, person is also marked on finite verbs (VERB, AUX).
• There are three layered features, Person[psor], Number[psor] and Deixis[psor]. They appear with nouns, infinitives, certain pronouns and adpositions and encode the lexical person/number of the possessor or the position of an entity relative to either the speaker or the hearer. The extra layer is needed to distinguish these lexical features from the inflectional person and number that mark agreement with the modified (possessed) noun.

Other Features

• Besides the layered features listed above, there are several other language-specific features:
  • AdpType
  • ConjType
  • Deixis
  • ExtPos
  • NumForm
  • NameType
  • Style
  • Typo
  • The value Style=Arch is used for archaic forms that belong to an older grammatical pattern but occur in Middle Armenian texts.
  • The following universal features are not used in Middle Armenian: Gender, Evident.

Note that for forms retaining Classical Armenian forms, we specify the language code xcl and apply its morphological annotation conventions, which may differ from those used for Middle Armenian. Note also that in prepositional constructions inherited from Classical Armenian, the case of nouns, numerals, and adjectives is annotated according to their morphological form rather than the semantic function of the preposition.

Syntax

This is an overview only. For more detailed discussion and examples, see the list of Middle Armenian relations, as well as Middle Armenian-specific examples scattered across the documentation of constructions.

Core Arguments, Oblique Arguments and Adjuncts

• Nominal subject (nsubj) is a noun phrase in the nominative case, without preposition.
  • An infinitival clause functioning as the subject is labeled csubj. A case-marked infinitive functioning as a nominal is analyzed according to its syntactic function.
  • A finite subordinate clause may serve as the subject and is labeled csubj.
• Subjects of passive clauses are labeled nsubj:pass or csubj:pass.
  • The causer in a periphrastic causative construction is labeled nsubj:caus.
  • A nominal subject of a copular clause whose predicate is itself a clause is labeled nsubj:outer.
  • A clausal subject of a copular clause whose predicate is itself a clause is labeled csubj:outer.
• Core nominal objects are labeled obj or iobj.
  • A direct object is normally a bare noun phrase in the nominative form.
  • A single dative argument selected by the verb may also be a core object.
  • If a verb takes two core objects, the non-nominative object, usually a dative recipient or experiencer, is labeled iobj.
  • Infinitival complements of modal and control predicates are normally labeled xcomp; finite complements are labeled ccomp.
• Non-core dependents are labeled obl. They include temporal and locative noun phrases, adpositional phrases, and case-marked nominals expressing such roles as means, manner, direction, source, beneficiary, or location.
• Adpositions attach to their nominal complement with case. Inflected postpositional localizers attach with case:loc; when a localizer occurs independently, it attaches to the predicate as obl while retaining the ADP tag.
• In passive clauses, an overt demoted agent is labeled obl:agent.
  • The auxiliary verb in periphrastic passive is labeled aux.
• In periphrastic causatives:
  • տալ/tal is attached to the infinitive with aux:caus;
  • a dative demoted agent is labeled iobj:agent;
  • a nominative-form agent realized as the syntactic object of the causative construction is labeled obj:agent.

Non-verbal Clauses

• Forms of եմ/em “be” are tagged AUX and attach to the non-verbal predicate with cop. The predicate is the head of the clause.
• The copular analysis is used with equational, attributive, locative, possessive, and benefactive predicates. Under the UD v2 guidelines, prepositional and postpositional phrases expressing location are also treated as predicates. The relevant forms of լինիմ/linim “be” are lexical VERB with nominal predicates. They are AUX only in compound constructions with participles.
• Purely existential կամ/kam “exist” is the head of its clause and is tagged VERB. In secondary compound constructions, existential կամ/kam “exist” and ունիմ/ownim “have” may function as auxiliaries and receive aux:ex.

Relations Overview

• The following relation subtypes are used in Middle Armenian:
  • acl:relcl for relative clauses
  • advcl:relcl for relative clause modifiers of clauses
  • advmod:emph for adverbs or particles that modify noun phrases and emphasize or negate them
  • aux:caus for causative auxiliaries
  • aux:ех for existentials as auxiliary
  • compound:lvc for light compound verbs
  • compound:svc for serial compound verbs
  • csubj:outer for outer clause clausal subject
  • csubj:pass for clausal subjects of passive verbs
  • flat:name for names
  • flat:range for numeric ranges
  • flat:redup for reduplicating constructions
  • iobj:agent for agentive indirect objects of causative verbs
  • nmod:npmod for noun phrases
  • nmod:poss for possessive modifiers
  • nsubj:caus for nominal subjects of causative verbs
  • nsubj:outer for outer clause nominal subject
  • nsubj:pass for nominal subjects of passive verbs
  • obj:agent for object-like agents in causative constructions
  • obl:agent for agents of passive verbs
• The following relation types are not used in Armenian at all: clf

Treebanks

There is just one Middle Armenian UD treebank:

• Middle_Armenian-ArmTDP

© 2014–2024 Universal Dependencies contributors. Site powered by Annodoc and brat

.