home edit page issue tracker

This page pertains to UD version 2.

It appears that you have Javascript disabled. Please consider enabling Javascript for this page to see the visualizations.

UD for Tswana

Tokenization and Word Segmentation

Words are generally delimited by whitespace or punctuation. Exceptions:
- None at this stage
Multiword tokens are used for idiomatic expressions like le fa e le “neither…nor, none of them” in Tswana.

Morphology

Features

Nouns have NounClass specifying Bantu classes (inherently indicative of singular or plural).
Adjectives agree with Nouns with respect to NounClass.
Tokens annotated with UPOS PRON, but tagged as concords in XPOS (SC, OC) have NounClass information.
Tokens annotated with UPOS PART, but tagged as concords in XPOS (POSSC*) have NounClass information.
Polarity is only indicated for negative values as Neg and applies to morphemes tagged ADV in UPOS and MNEG in XPOS.
Other features might be added during future annotation efforts.

Syntax

Root

The main verb in a Tswana main clause is the root. If an identifying, describing or associative copulative verb is included in a sentence the complement of these verbs is the root.

Subjects

A nominal subject nsubj is a nominal which is the syntactic subject and the proto-agent of a clause. That is, it is in the position that passes typical grammatical tests for subjecthood, and this argument is the more agentive, the doer, or the proto-agent of the clause. This nominal in Tswana may be headed by a noun or pronoun or it may also be a possessive particle phrase or a qualificative particle phrase.

In Tswana, the subject concord (aka subject agreement morpheme) is an agreement marker which marks the relation between a subject and a verb. This concord acquires a pronominal function when the overt subject is omitted. The relation nsubj is assigned in Tswana to show the relation between the verb and a preceding subject concord when there is no overt subject. For example, in Sentence 13 O lebile eng? “You[SubjConc] see[Perf] what?” a nsubj relation is assigned for the relation between lebile “see” and the preceding subject concord o “you”.

The nsubj relation is also used for the nominal subject of a passive verb or verb group, even though the subject is then not typically the proto-agent argument due to valency changing operations. The subtype nsubj:pass is used in this instance. For example, in Sentence 12 the subtype nsubj:pass is assigned between kwadilwe “write[Perf]” and e “it[SubjConc]”.

Objects

Direct objects: The direct object is the object that denotes the entity acted upon or which undergoes a change of state or motion (the proto-patient). The phrase acting as the direct object in Tswana may be headed by a noun or pronoun or it may also be a possessive particle phrase or a qualificative particle phrase.
An object in Tswana can be replaced with an object concord (aka object agreement morpheme). This morpheme is included in the morphological structure of the verb. The obj relation between the verb and the preceding object concord (direct) indicate the pronominal function of this concord. The subtype obj:conc is also included.
Indirect objects: The indirect object is the object that is indirectly affected by the process indicated in the verb. It is usually a benefactor because the process is carried out on its behalf. The phrase acting as the indirect object in Tswana may be headed by a noun or pronoun or it may also be a possessive particle phrase or a qualificative particle phrase.
An indirect object in Tswana can be replaced with an object concord (aka object agreement morpheme). This morpheme is included in the morphological structure of the verb. The obj relation between the verb and the preceding object concord (indirect) indicate the pronominal function of this concord and the subtype iobj:conc is included.

Auxiliary verbs aux

An auxiliary verb enriches the meaning of the complementary main verb, copulative verb or another auxiliary verb phrase and can add semantic information regarding the mood, tense, aspect and/or polarity of a verb. It adds information on the progression or completion of an action. It expresses a certain type of duration of the action or it expresses the logical time at which the action is executed. For example, the auxiliary verb ne indicates an action that is incomplete and continuing at a certain moment in the past.

The aux relation is used in Tswana to indicate the relation between a verb and the preceding auxiliary verb but also for the relation between main verbs such as batla “want”, leka “try”, kgona “manage” when they are followed by an infinitive verb as for example in sentences 3, 4, and 11.

Copulatives cop

A cop (copula) is the relation of a function word used to link a subject to a nonverbal predicate. Tswana distinguishes three types of copulatives: identifying copulative, describing copulative and associative copulative verbs. The morphological structure of these verbs may include tense, aspect, mood and polarity information.

Identifying copulative: identifies a subject with regards to type, status or profession or to predicate the existence or presence of a thing
Describing copulative: establishes some quality, characteristic or state of a subject, or its situation or locality
Associative copulative: expresses the idea of the English have or be with and indicates possession or association

When the verb in Tswana is an identifying or describing copulative verb, the root of the clause is the complement of the copulative verb. These two types of copulative verbs are POS tagged as [AUX], and the cop relation is used between the root and the preceding copulative verb.

In the case of an associative copulative verb, the root of the clause is the copulative verb. The associative copulative verbs in Tswana are POS tagged as [VERB], and the obj relation is used between the root and the complement that follows it. This analysis differs from traditional Tswana linguistic descriptions.

Clausal complements ccomp

The clausal complement in Tswana indicates that there exists a relation between a main clause and a subordinate clause in the infinitive, subjunctive, and participial moods.

Infinitive: expresses a meaning of purpose, for example: Ba nê ba ile go thusa batsadi ba bôna. “They went to help their parents.”
Subjunctive: expresses an action that indicates a certain goal or a result of another preceding action and the conjunction gore “that, so that” is used as an introductory member to that part of the sentence that includes an action in the subjunctive mood, for example: Ke bula lebati gore baithuti ba tsene. “I open the door so that the students can come in.”
Participial: expresses an action that takes place simultaneously with another action, for example Batho ba tsamaya ba opela. “The people walk singing.”
It can also state a stipulation or precondition for the execution of another action. Conjunctions such as fa “as, while, when, if”, le fa “even if, although, while” and ka “since” are then included as an introductory member to that part of the sentence that includes a conditional action, for example:

Tswana Example	Translation
Ke tla mmitsa fa a tlilê.	“I will call him when I have arrived.”
Re tla ya gae le fa pula e na.	“We will go home while it is raining.”
Re tla ya gae ka ba jelê.	“We will go home since they have eaten.”

Modifiers

nmod: This relation is used between a nominal and a modifier. In Tswana nouns can be modified with pronouns.
amod: An adjectival modifier of a noun (or pronoun) is any adjectival phrase that serves to modify the noun (or pronoun). This relation is used in Tswana between a nominal and the complement of a qualificative particle. For example in naga e kgolo “big country” the qualificative particle phrase is e kgolo. The amod relation is used to indicate the relation between naga “country” and kgolo “big”.
advmod: An adverbial modifier of a word is a (non-clausal) adverb or adverbial phrase that serves to modify a predicate or a modifier word. In Tswana an adverb is a word which is used to modify the meaning of a verb:
- Basic adverbs that refer to manner for example ruri “really, truly”
- Some manner adverbs include an adverbial prefix ga or se in front of adjectival roots, for example gagolo “greatly, especially, essentially” and sentle “nicely”
- Basic adverbs that refer to time (temporal) for example jaanong “now”
- Interrogatives, for example eng? “what?”, mang? “who (singular)”, bomang? “who? (plural)”, leng? “when?”, jang? “how?”, kae? “where?” and gakae? “how many times?” advmod is also used for negation: the negative marker is in and advmod relation with the verb it modifies (analogue to English).
appos: An appositional modifier of a noun is a nominal immediately following the first noun that serves to define, modify, name, or describe that noun. It therefore adds some additional information to the content of the head in case some misunderstanding, or vagueness might occur.

Obliques obl:

The obl relation is used for a non-core oblique argument or adjunct. The following subtypes are relevant:

obl:agent: in passive constructions, e.g. Basimane ba romilwe ke banna. “The boys are being sent by the men.”
obl:lmod: specifies the location, e.g. mo lebekeleng “in the shop”
obl:tmod: temporal modifier, e.g. maabane “yesterday”

Case case

Tswana has a rich verbal morphology, including prefixes indicating noun classes and agreement. Tswana does not show any case marking morphology that is comparable to case systems in other languages. The case relation in Tswana is used for the relation between a nominal and a preceding particle (including a possessive particle, the instrumental particle, a locative particle, or the agentative particle).

Coordination cc

This relation exists between a conjunct and the preceding coordinating conjunction. Examples of conjunctions that can be included between non-predicative words and word groups are le “and” and kgôtsa “or”. Examples of conjunctions that can be included between predicative words and word groups are mme “and”, e bile “and”, le gôna “also”, kgôtsa “or” and mme “but”.

discourse

This relation is used for interjections and other discourse particles and elements (which are not clearly linked to the structure of the sentence, except in an expressive way). In Tswana, this relation is also used for the interrogative particle A included at the beginning of a sentence. This particle is used to change an indicative sentence to an interrogative sentence. See for example Sentence 4 A o batla go tsamaya? “Do you want to go?” where A is the interrogative particle.

fixed

The fixed relation is used in Tswana for multi-word expressions consisting of two or more words that are considered to behave like a function word. For example le fa e le “neither … nor, none of them” is an idiomatic phrase functioning as a conjunction in Tswana.

compound

The compound relation is used in Tswana for the disjunctively written TAME morphemes in the morphological structure of a verb. These morphemes include the present tense morpheme a, the progressive morpheme sa “still”, the potential morpheme ka “can, may” and the future tense morpheme tla “will, shall”. These morphemes are written disjunctively, but linked to the following verb or auxiliary by the compound relation. This relation is also used for go SC15 followed by a verb expressing a gerund.

mark

A marker is used in Tswana for conjunctions that mark a clause as subordinate to another clause. The marker is an introductory member of a clause that includes an action in the subjunctive or participial mood. For the subjunctive, the conjunction gore “that, so that” is used.

For the participial, a conjunction such as fa “as, while, when, if”, le fa “even if, although, while” and ka “since” are used, for example:

Tswana Example	Translation
Ke tla mmitsa fa a tlilê.	“I will call him when I have arrived.”
Re tla ya gae le fa* pula e na.*	“We will go home while it is raining.”
Re tla ya gae ka ba jelê.	“We will go home since they have eaten.”

mark is also used in Tswana in infinitive verbs, for example go tlogela “to stop” where the marker is go “to”.

mark is also used in a relative clause where the qualificative particle is the marker. The qualificative particle always agrees with a specific noun class in Tswana, for example in e kgolo “” the marker is the qualificative particle e that indicates noun class 9 agreement.

expl

In instances where an overt subject is realised in a sentence, the subject concord is an agreement marker which marks the relation between the overt subject and the verb. In these cases we opted for the expl relation for the subject concord. This relation is used in UD for phenomena such as clitic doubling (e.g. in Romance languages) or the doubling of a lexical nominal and a pronominal clitic (e.g. in Greek and Bulgarian). Even though subject concords are not the same as clitics, they behave in a similar fashion in that they are a type of “pronominal” copy without its own semantic role.

Vocative vocative

An addressee’s name is linked to the sentence. In Tswana the vocative consists of a personal name or a noun that refers to the second person singular (you) and the second person plural, (you and company or you and those with you). Examples:

Tswana Example	Translation
Pule, tlaa kwano!	“Pule, come here!”
Bomma, ba rome!	“Ladies, send them!”

Treebanks

There is one Tswana UD treebanks:

Tswana