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This page pertains to UD version 2.

xcomp: open clausal complement

The dependency type xcomp is reserved for clausal complements which have an external subject, that is, whose subject is shared with the complemented verb (a phenomenon also known as subject control). Note that the subject of the complementing clause must be the subject of the complemented verb, not any other sentence element (in other cases the dependency type xcomp:ds should be used instead). These complements are always non-finite.

Hän alkoi hakata halkoja . \n He started chopping the_wood .
nsubj(alkoi-2, Hän-1)
xcomp(alkoi-2, hakata-3)
obj(hakata-3, halkoja-4)
punct(alkoi-2, .-5)

Many of the complements with an external subject resemble cases that are analyzed as main verbs with auxiliaries. Both auxiliaries and xcomp complements share their subject with another verb, but only a closed list of verbs are analyzed as auxiliaries (see aux). Note also that in auxiliary cases the second verb is the governor, whereas with xcomp the first verb becomes governor (unless the word order is inverse).

Secondary predicates

The xcomp relation is also used in constructions that are known as secondary predicates or predicatives, which are core arguments of the predicate. Most commonly these are adjetives, but also participial and nominal arguments are possible. For example in the sentence Hän teki siitä hyvin vaikeaa there are two mixed predicates: 1) hän teki jotain, and 2) se on vaikeaa. The secondary predication can be provided to any higher clause element.

Hän teki siitä hyvin vaikeaa . \n He made (from_)it very difficult .
nsubj(teki, Hän)
nmod(teki, siitä)
advmod(vaikeaa, hyvin)
xcomp(teki, vaikeaa)
punct(teki, .)
Minulla oli mukavaa .
xcomp(oli, mukavaa)
nmod(oli, Minulla)
punct(oli, .)

Note: Adjectival complements correspond to acomp (adjectival complement) in the original Stanford Dependencies and the Turku Dependency Treebank.

####Diffs

Secondary predication is not recognized in FinnTreeBank (FI_FTB). Therefore xcomp is always a non-finite verb (or a predicative of a non-finite copular clause) in FI_FTB. As the examples above represent types of result and state clauses (ISK § 891), in FI_FTB they have been annotated using predicatives (see chapter Copulas in Specific constructions).


xcomp in other languages: [bg] [bm] [cop] [cs] [de] [el] [en] [es] [eu] [fi] [fr] [fro] [ga] [gsw] [hy] [it] [ka] [kk] [la] [ml] [no] [pa] [pcm] [pt] [qpm] [ru] [sl] [sv] [swl] [tr] [u] [vi] [yue] [zh]