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. Armenian proper nouns are always written with an initial capital letter. Note that names of the days of the week (երկուշաբթի/erkowšabt’i “Monday”, երեքշաբթի/erek’šabt’i “Tuesday”, չորեքշաբթի/čorek’šabt’i “Wednesday”, հինգշաբթի/hingšabt’i “Thursday”, ուրբաթ/owrbat’ “Friday”, շաբաթ/šabat’ “Saturday”, կիրակի/kiraki “Sunday”) and names of months (հունվար/hownvar “January”, փետրվար/p’etrvar “February”, մարտ/mart “March”, ապրիլ/april “April”, մայիս/mayis “May”, հունիս/hownis “June”, հուլիս/howlis “July”, օգոստոս/ògostos “August”, սեպտեմբեր/september “September”, հոկտեմբեր/hoktember “October”, նոյեմբեր/noyember “November”, դեկտեմբեր/dektember “December”) are not capitalized (unlike in English) and are not considered proper nouns.
Single-word named entities are tagged PROPN even when they originate from a common noun (Աշտարակ/Aštarak, Իջևան/Iǰewan) (towns) or an adjective (Սիզավետ/Sizavet, Որոտան/Orotan) (village, river). Even if սիզավետ/sizavet “grassy” is originally an adjective, syntactically it behaves as a noun. As a geographical name, it denotes a specific location rather than a property.
Note that names of languages (հայերեն/hayeren “Armenian”, անգլերեն/angleren “English”) and adjectives derived from geographical names (հայկական/haykakan “Armenian”, հայոց/hayoc’ “Armenian”, անգլիական/angliakan “English”, երևանյան/erewanyan “of Yerevan”) are written in lowercase and are not tagged PROPN.
Personal names are typically treated as a sequence of proper nouns (one or more given names and one or more surnames). If the name contains prepositions, conjunctions or articles (foreign names), these are tagged X and their original part of speech is not reflected in the morphological annotation.
When other phrases or sentences are used as names, the component words retain their original tags. For example, in «Մենք ենք մեր սարերը»/Menk’ enk’ mer sarerë “We are our mountains”, Մենք/Menk’ “we” is PRON, ենք/enk’ “are” is AUX, մեր/mer “our” is DET, etc.
Acronyms of proper nouns, such as ՄԱԿ “UN” and ՆԱՏՕ “NATO”, are tagged PROPN. Even if they contain digits (as in certain model names), they are tagged PROPN and not SYM: ՏՈՒ-154Մ, ԻԼ-76. However, if the token consists entirely of digits (like 7 in Windows 7), it is tagged NUM.
Armenian multi-word named entities have internal syntactic structure, which is preserved in the annotation. The headword is always a noun, although other nouns may also occur in the name. Words that are proper nouns when used as single-word named entities are tagged PROPN. Even if an adjective is the first word of a multi-word name, and thus it starts with an uppercase letter, it is still tagged ADJ.
Note that the additional feature NameType is used to encode the types of named entities.
Examples
- Դոնի/Doni
PROPNՌոստով/ṘostovPROPN“Rostov-on-Don”, Մայնի/MayniPROPNՖրանկֆուրտ/FrankfowrtPROPN“Frankfurt am Main”. Ռոստով/Ṙostov and Ֆրանկֆուրտ/Frankfowrt are the heads. The Դոնի/Doni, Մայնի/Mayni parts refer to the rivers flowing through the city, and are tagged asPROPNtoo. - Լյուդվիգ/Lyowdvig
PROPNվան/vanXԲեթհովեն/Bet’hovenPROPN“Ludwig van Beethoven”, Միգել/MigelPROPNդը/dëXՍերվանտես/ServantesPROPN“Miguel de Cervantes”. The van, de parts are prepositions in the languages of the names’ origin, and are taggedXin Armenian. - Վերին/Verin
ADJՍասնաշեն/SasnašenPROPNis a village. Սասնաշեն/Sasnašen is the head and it is taggedPROPNalthough it is a geographical name. Վերին/Verin is an adjective meaning “upper” and it is taggedADJ. - Հյուսիսային/Hyowsisayin
ADJսառուցյալ/saṙowc’yalADJօվկիանոս/òvkianosNOUN“The Arctic Ocean”. Although the three words together form the name of an ocean, օվկիանոս/òvkianos is a common noun and is tagged as such. - Միավորված/Miavorvaç
ADJազգերի/azgeriNOUNկազմակերպություն/kazmakerpowt’yownNOUN“United Nations Organization” consists of three words, none of which is a proper noun. However, the acronym ՄԱԿ “UNO” is a single-token name and is taggedPROPN. In ԵԱՀԿ/EAHKPROPNՄինսկի/MinskiPROPNխումբ/xowmbNOUN“The OSCE Minsk Group” the first two words are single-word proper nouns and are therefore taggedPROPN.
PROPN in other languages: [axm] [bej] [bg] [bm] [cs] [cy] [da] [el] [en] [es] [et] [eu] [fi] [fr] [fro] [ga] [grc] [hu] [hy] [hyw] [it] [ja] [ka] [kk] [kpv] [ky] [myv] [naq] [no] [oge] [pal] [pcm] [pt] [qpm] [ru] [sl] [sv] [tr] [tt] [u] [uk] [urj] [xcl] [xmf] [yue] [zh]