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UD for Spanish

Tokenization and Word Segmentation

In general, words are delimited by whitespace characters. Description of exceptions follows.
According to typographical rules, many punctuation marks are attached to a neighboring word. We usually tokenize them as separate tokens (words) with the exception of abbreviations such as etc. “etc.” which are kept as one token with the period.
There are two main classes of multi-word tokens:
- Contractions of prepositions and definite articles. Example: al = a + el “to the”, del = de + el “of the”.
- Certain verb forms (infinitives, imperatives, present participles) are writen together with object clitic pronouns, while with other verb forms the clitics are written as separate words. Examples: convertirse = convertir + se “to become” (lit. “to convert itself”), hacerlo “to do it”.

Morphology

Nominal Features

Nominal words (NOUN, PROPN and PRON) have an inherent Gender feature with one of two values: Masc or Fem.
- The following parts of speech inflect for Gender because they must agree with nouns: ADJ, DET. Only a subset of adjectives can inflect for gender, with the suffix -o indicating the masculine and -a the feminine. A large group of adjectives (e.g. grande “big” or feliz “happy”) have just one form regardless of the gender of the modified noun. These adjectives have the gender feature empty.
The two values of the Number feature are Sing and Plur. The following parts of speech inflect for number: NOUN, PROPN, PRON, ADJ, DET, VERB, AUX (finite and participles).
Case has 4 possible values: Nom, Dat, Acc, Com. It occurs only with personal pronouns (PRON). The “case” (i.e., role w.r.t. predicates or other phrases) of other nominals is expressed using prepositions, not morphologically.
Definite has 2 values: Ind, Def. It is used to distinguish the indefinite and definite articles (DET).

Degree and Polarity

Degree applies to adjectives (ADJ) and adverbs (ADV) and has one of three possible values: Pos, Cmp, Abs. The absolute superlative is marked morphologically on adjectives. Otherwise, the comparative and superlative of most adjectives is formed periphrastically, and Degree=Cmp is only used with a few irregular forms.
Polarity is used to mark the negative particle no, i.e., only the Neg value is used.

Verbal Features

Infinitives have only the VerbForm=Inf feature.
Finite verbs always have one of four values of Mood: Ind, Imp, Sub and Cnd.
Finite verbs can have one of four values of Tense: Past, Imp, Pres, Fut.
- Imperative and conditional forms do not have the Tense feature. (In Spanish grammar, the conditional is itself often classified as a tense. However, it is a mood in Universal Dependencies.)
- The Tense feature is also used with the past participles (venido “come”).
The Aspect feature is currently not used in Spanish. It is not needed for the imperfect past tense because UD has the special value Tense=Imp. And it is not needed for the perfect tenses because they are constructed periphrastically.
The Voice feature is not used in Spanish because the passive voice is expressed periphrastically.
Gerunds have only the VerbForm=Ger feature. They do not inflect for gender or number; the suffix is always -ndo.
Participles have VerbForm=Part, Tense=Past, Gender (Masc or Fem), and Number (Sing or Plur). The gender and number is annotated also in periphrastic perfect constructions, where the form is obligatorily masculine singular.

Pronouns, Determiners, Quantifiers

PronType is used with pronouns (PRON) and determiners (DET).
NumType is used with numerals (NUM), adjectives (ADJ) and determiners (DET).
NumForm is used with numerals (NUM) and adjectives (ADJ).
The Poss feature marks possessive personal determiners (e.g. mi “my”), possessive personal pronouns (e.g. mío “mine”), and possessive interrogative or relative determiners (e.g. cuyo “whose”).
The Reflex feature is always used together with PronType=Prs and it marks reflexive pronouns (me, te, se, nos, os). Note that their forms in the first and second person are ambiguous with irreflexive accusative forms, and the Reflex feature must be decided by context.
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 be almost always interpreted as the 3rd person.
- As a cross-reference to subject, person is also marked on finite verbs (VERB, AUX).
The Polite feature distinguishes informal second-person pronouns (tú, vosotros, Polite=Infm) from the formal usted, ustedes (Polite=Form).
There is one layered feature, Number[psor]. It appears with possessive determiners and encodes the lexical number of the possessor. The extra layer is needed to distinguish this lexical feature from the inflectional number that marks agreement with the modified (possessed) noun.

Other Features

The following universal features are not used in Spanish: Animacy, Evident.

Syntax

This is an overview only. For more detailed discussion and examples, see the list of Spanish relations.

Core Arguments, Oblique Arguments and Adjuncts

The dominant word order in Spanish is SVO, but other word orders, especially OVS and SOV, are also possible.
Nominal subject (nsubj) is a bare noun phrase without preposition. If it is a personal pronoun, it must be in the nominative form (note however that Spanish is a pro-drop language, where pronominal subjects can be omitted). It typically occurs preverbally, but it can occur after the verb as well. The morphology of a finite verb (or auxiliary) cross-references the person and number of its subject.
Direct nominal object (obj) is either a bare noun phrase (for inanimate objects) or a prepositional phrase with the preposition a (for animate objects) or a personal pronoun in the accusative form. Note that the preposition a is otherwise used to mark a range of oblique dependents. A nominal with that preposition counts as a core argument only if it is animate and it can be substituted by an accusative third-person pronoun (lo, la, los, las). If it would be substituted by a dative pronoun (le, les) in the context of the given verb, then it is not core, it is oblique.
- The accusative pronoun is a clitic and its position in the word order is fixed. With finite verbs in indicative or subjunctive, it occurs immediately before the verb and is written as a separate word. With imperatives, infinitives and gerunds, it occurs immediately after the verb (or after a dative clitic, if both are present), and is written together with the verb as one multiword token; we still treat it as a separate syntactic word.
- The accusative clitic may occur even together with the object noun; this construction is called clitic doubling. Both the noun and the clitic are attached directly to the verb. However, the clitic is labeled as the object only if the noun is absent. In case of clitic doubling, the noun is attached as obj and the clitic as expl (expletive).
The term ‘indirect object’ is traditionally used in Spanish grammar for the argument that represents the recipient or beneficiary of an action. However, these participants are not core arguments (they use oblique marking, either a preposition or a dative pronoun), hence they cannot be called indirect objects in UD and the relation iobj has no use in Spanish. To distinguish them from temporal and local adjuncts, we use the relation obl:arg for the recipients.
- Under certain circumstances, the dative pronoun le may be used instead of the accusative pronoun lo to denote the direct object. This is called leísmo (Erichsen, Gerald. “Leísmo and the Use of ‘Le’ in Spanish.” ThoughtCo, Apr. 5, 2023). The UD annotation does not distinguish these cases from the standard usage of dative pronouns. They are still tagged as Case=Dat and their dependency is obl:arg, not obj, despite the fact that leísmo can occur also with primary transitive verbs (e.g. in Spanish PUD: la Revolución le derrocó en 1879 “the Revolution overthrew him in 1879”).

# text = Jorge mató al dragón.
# text_en = George killed the dragon.
1	Jorge	Jorge	PROPN	_	Gender=Masc|Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	Gloss=George
2	mató	matar	VERB	_	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	Gloss=killed
3-4	al	_	_	_	_	_	_	_	_
3	a	a	ADP	_	_	5	case	_	Gloss=to
4	el	el	DET	_	Definite=Def|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|PronType=Art	5	det	_	Gloss=the
5	dragón	dragón	NOUN	_	Gender=Masc|Number=Sing	2	obj	_	Gloss=dragon|SpaceAfter=No
6	.	.	PUNCT	_	_	2	punct	_	_

# text = Jorge lo mató.
# text_en = George killed it.
1	Jorge	Jorge	PROPN	_	Gender=Masc|Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	Gloss=George
2	lo	él	PRON	_	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obj	_	Gloss=him
3	mató	matar	VERB	_	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	Gloss=killed|SpaceAfter=No
4	.	.	PUNCT	_	_	3	punct	_	_

# text = El límite sur lo forma la costa.
# text_en = The southern border is formed by the coast.
1	El	el	DET	_	Definite=Def|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|PronType=Art	2	det	_	Gloss=the
2	límite	límite	NOUN	_	Gender=Masc|Number=Sing	5	obj	_	Gloss=border
3	sur	sur	NOUN	_	Gender=Masc|Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	Gloss=south
4	lo	él	PRON	_	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	expl	_	Gloss=him
5	forma	formar	VERB	_	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	Gloss=forms|SpaceAfter=No
6	la	el	DET	_	Definite=Def|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|PronType=Art	7	det	_	Gloss=the
7	costa	costa	NOUN	_	Gender=Fem|Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	Gloss=coast|SpaceAfter=No
8	.	.	PUNCT	_	_	5	punct	_	_

# text = Mi padre no alquilará su tierra a los irlandeses.
# text_en = My father won't rent his land to the Irish.
1	Mi	mi	DET	_	Number=Sing|Number[psor]=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	det	_	Gloss=my
2	padre	padre	NOUN	_	Gender=Masc|Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	Gloss=father
3	no	no	PART	_	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	Gloss=not
4	alquilará	alquilar	VERB	_	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Fut|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	Gloss=will.rent
5	su	su	DET	_	Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	det	_	Gloss=his
6	tierra	tierra	NOUN	_	Gender=Fem|Number=Sing	4	obj	_	Gloss=land
7	a	a	ADP	_	_	9	case	_	Gloss=to
8	los	el	DET	_	Definite=Def|Gender=Masc|Number=Plur|PronType=Art	9	det	_	Gloss=the
9	irlandeses	irlandés	NOUN	_	Gender=Masc|Number=Plur	4	obl:arg	_	Gloss=Irish|SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	_	_	4	punct	_	_

# text = Mi padre no les alquilará su tierra.
# text_en = My father won't rent his land to them.
1	Mi	mi	DET	_	Number=Sing|Number[psor]=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	det	_	Gloss=my
2	padre	padre	NOUN	_	Gender=Masc|Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	Gloss=father
3	no	no	PART	_	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	Gloss=not
4	les	él	PRON	_	Case=Dat|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obl:arg	_	Gloss=them
5	alquilará	alquilar	VERB	_	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Fut|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	Gloss=will.rent
6	su	su	DET	_	Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	det	_	Gloss=his
7	tierra	tierra	NOUN	_	Gender=Fem|Number=Sing	5	obj	_	Gloss=land|SpaceAfter=No
8	.	.	PUNCT	_	_	5	punct	_	_

# text = Pedro le dio un libro a María.
# text_en = Pedro gave a book to María.
1	Pedro	Pedro	PROPN	_	Gender=Masc|Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	Gloss=Pedro
2	le	él	PRON	_	Case=Dat|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	expl	_	Gloss=her
3	dio	dar	VERB	_	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	Gloss=gave
4	un	un	DET	_	Definite=Ind|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|PronType=Art	5	det	_	Gloss=a
5	libro	libro	NOUN	_	Gender=Masc|Number=Sing	3	obj	_	Gloss=book
6	a	a	ADP	_	_	7	case	_	Gloss=to
7	María	María	PROPN	_	Gender=Fem|Number=Sing	3	obl:arg	_	Gloss=María|SpaceAfter=No
8	.	.	PUNCT	_	_	3	punct	_	_

Extra attention has to be paid to the reflexive pronoun se. It can function as:
- Core object (obj): él se vio en el espejo “he sighted himself in the mirror.”
- Dative oblique argument (obl:arg): ella se dio un regalo “she gave herself a gift.”
- Reciprocal core objects (obj): se besaron “they kissed each other.”
- Reflexive passive (expl:pass): se celebran los cien años del club “hundred years of the club are celebrated” (lit. “celebrate themselves”); se dice que la escribió en París “it is said that he wrote it in Paris.”
- Inherently reflexive verb, cannot exist without the reflexive clitic, and the clitic cannot be substituted by an irreflexive pronoun or a noun phrase. In many cases, an irreflexive counterpart of the verb actually exists but its meaning is different because it denotes a different action performed by the agent. In accord with the current UD guidelines, we label the relation between the verb and the clitic as expl:pv, not compound. Example: se trataba de un negocio nuevo “the matter is a new contract.”
In passive clauses, the subject is labeled with nsubj:pass or csubj:pass, respectively.
- The auxiliary verb in periphrastic passive is labeled aux:pass.

Non-verbal Clauses

The copula verbs ser and estar (be) are used in equational, attributional, locative, possessive and benefactory nonverbal clauses.
- Existential clauses use a different verb, hay (be), and the entity whose existence is asserted is its object: hay algo para comer “there is something to eat.”

Relations Overview

The following relation subtypes are used in Spanish:
- acl:relcl for relative clauses
- nsubj:pass for nominal subjects of passive verbs
- csubj:pass for clausal subjects of passive verbs
- aux:pass for passive auxiliaries
The following relation types are not used in Spanish at all: clf, dislocated, iobj

Treebanks

There are three Spanish UD treebanks: