The application to English has been carried out by the MULTEXT Group
at ISSCO (ISSCO 1994).
Note that this application has been carried out on the basis of the
attributes and the values as presented in the preceding version of
this deliverable (MULTEXT WP1.6 A2 version).
Notation:
Trailing place-holders have been omitted.
It should be borne in mind that the need for place-holders is an artefact of the linear representation of lexical descriptions. A number of extensions have been made to the various proposals circulated. It is not clear how language-specific they are, but they represent phenomena that are plausibly relevant for various text-processing tasks.
5.5.1 Nouns (N)
---------------
= ============== ============== =
P ATT VAL C
= ============== ============== =
1 Type Common c
Proper p
- -------------- -------------- -
2 Number Singular s
Plural p
- -------------- -------------- -
3 Gender Masculine m
Feminine f
Neuter n
= ============== ============== =
Notes:
Case is not relevant for English.
Gender is probably unnecessary for most purposes. We can assume it may
be of interest in constructions with pronouns. Many nouns are (or may
be) unmarked for number: fish, sheep, aircraft.
Examples:
Ncsn house
Ncpn houses
Npsn Thames
Nppn Alps
Ncpf women
Ncsm man
Nc=n sheep
5.5.2 Verbs (V)
---------------
= ============== ============== =
P ATT VAL C
= ============== ============== =
1 Type Main v
Auxiliary a
Modal m
- -------------- -------------- -
2 Form Indicative i Form, not Mood
Imperative m
Subjunctive s
Base b base, not infinitive
Past Prt p Past Prt, not participle
Present Prt g Present Prt added (not gerund)
- -------------- -------------- -
3 Tense Present s
Past d
- -------------- -------------- -
4 Number Singular s
Plural p
- -------------- -------------- -
5 Person First 1
Second 2
Third 3
= ============== ============== =
Notes:
Voice is not lexical.
Attributes have been reordered to minimize sequence lengths (assuming
the proposal about trailing "-"s) - Tense only applies to Finite
verbs,
Number only to Present, and Person only to Singular. Modals have been
included as a distinct subcategory.
Finiteness as an attribute is redundant - predictable from verb-form
and past/present.
These tags do not attempt to represent distinctions found in the
various compound verb-forms. These are composed of a sequence of
auxiliary and non-finite verb as follows:
future will/shall + base
conditional would/should + base
passive be + past participle
perfect have + past participle
past perfect have-past + past participle
present continuous be + present participle
infinitive to + base
So there is no "aspect" attribute or "future" value, for example.
Examples:
go Vvm, Vvb, Vvs, Vvisp, Vviss1, Vviss2
goes Vviss3
going Vvg
gone Vvp
went Vvid
have Vab, Vas, Vaip, Vaiss1, Vaiss2
has Vaiss3
had Vap Vaid
having Vag
be Vab, Vam
am Vaiss1
are Vaiss2, Vaisp
is Vaiss3
was Vaids1, Vaids3
were Vaids2, Vaidp
been Vap
being Vag
will Vmi
would Vmi
5.5.3 Adjectives (A)
--------------------
= ============== ============== =
P ATT VAL C
= ============== ============== =
1 Degree Positive p
Comparative c
Superlative s
- -------------- -------------- -
2 Position Attributive a Position added
Predicative p
= ============== ============== =
Notes:
Gender, number and case irrelevant for English.
Attributive/predicative distinction reflects positional constraints -
some adjectives ('mere', 'utter', etc.) only appear in prenominal
position, while others ('awake', 'devoid', etc.) only appear in
predicative position. Most can appear in either.
Since many English comparatives & superlatives are formed with
more/most, "positive" cannot be interpreted as "neither comparative
nor superlative". See "Adverbs".
Examples:
big Ap
bigger Ac
biggest As
more peculiar Dscn+Ap
most remarkable Dssn+A
awake App
mere Apa
5.5.4 Pronoun (P)
-----------------
= ============== ============== =
P ATT VAL C
= ============== ============== =
1 Pron.-Type General g General added
Demonstrative d
Possessive s
Personal p
Reflexive x
- -------------- -------------- -
2 WH Not-WH n WH added
Relative r
Int q
- -------------- -------------- -
3 Number Singular s
Plural p
- -------------- -------------- -
4 Person First 1
Second 2
Third 3
- -------------- -------------- -
5 Gender Masculine m
Feminine f
Neuter n
- -------------- -------------- -
6 Case Nominative n
Accusative a
- -------------- -------------- -
7 Poss-Number Singular s
Plural p
- -------------- -------------- -
8 Poss-Person First 1 Poss-Person added
Second 2
Third 3
- -------------- -------------- -
9 Poss-Gender Masculine m Poss-Gender added
Feminine f
Neuter n
= ============== ============== =
Notes:
"General" pronouns are those which are not personal, possessive,
demonstrative or reflexive. The choice of these four categories is
based on distributional facts, though at a rather high level of
abstraction. They enter into anaphoric dependencies which are
signalled morphosyntactically and are therefore (in principle) more
amenable to automatic detection. Most general pronouns do not,
although they too sometimes encode number information.
"WH" attribute added to allow for combination of possessive and WH in
"whose".
Examples:
Pgn some, all, ...
Pgns each, something, nothing, everything, -body, ...
Pgnp both, ...
Pdns this, that
Pdnp these, those
Psn---s1 mine
Psn----2 yours
Psn---s3m his
Psn---s3f hers
Psn---s3n its
Psn---p1 ours
Psn---p3 theirs
Psq whose
Ppns1-n I
Ppn-2 you
Ppns3mn he
Ppns3fn she
Ppns3n it
Ppnp1-n we
Ppnp3-n they
Ppns1-a me
Ppns3ma him
Ppns3fa her
Ppnp1-a us
Ppnp3-a them
Prns1 myself
Prns2 yourself
Prns3m himself
Prns3f herself
Prns3n itself
Prnp1 ourselves
Prnp1 yourselves
Prnp1 themselves
Ppr which
Ppq which, what
5.5.5 Articles/Determiners (R)
------------------------------
= ============== ============== =
P ATT VAL C
= ============== ============== =
1 Type Def-article t
Indef-article a
Demonstrative d
Possessive s
General g General added
- -------------- -------------- -
2 WH Not-WH n WH added
Relative r
Int/Excl q
- -------------- -------------- -
3 Number Singular s
Plural p
- -------------- -------------- -
4 Person First 1
Second 2
Third 3
- -------------- -------------- -
5 Gender Masculine m
Feminine f
Neuter n
- -------------- -------------- -
6 Poss-Number Singular s
Plural p
- -------------- -------------- -
7 Poss-Person First 1 Poss-Person added
Second 2
Third 3
- -------------- -------------- -
8 Poss-Gender Masculine m Poss-Gender added
Feminine f
Neuter n
= ============== ============== =
Notes:
Case not relevant to English.
Definite and indefinite articles represented as values of "Type".
All of these have been marked as 3rd person. This is redundant, since
determiners are all 3rd person, if anything.
Examples:
Rtn-3 the
Rans3 a/an
Rdns3-ns this, that
Rdnp3-np these, those
Rsn-3-s1 my
Rsn-3--2 your
Rsn-3-s3m his
Rsn-3-s3f her
Rsn-3-s3n its
Rsn-3-p1 our
Rsn-3-p3 their
Rsr-3 whose
Rsq-3 whose
Rgr-3 which
Rgq-3 which, what,
Rgns3 each, ...
Rgnp3 all, both, certain, many, ...
Rgn-3 some, ...
5.5.6 Adverbs (D)
-----------------
= ============== ============== =
P ATT VAL C
= ============== ============== =
1 Degree Positive p
Comparative c
Superlative s
- -------------- -------------- -
2 Function Specifier s Function added
Modifier m
- -------------- -------------- -
3 WH Yes q WH added
No n
= ============== ============== =
Notes:
No distinction has been made between different types of "modifier"
adverbs ("sentence-modifying", "VP-modifying", etc.), since their
distributions overlap considerably.
Examples:
Dbsn so, too, very, as
Dbsq how
Dcsn more
Dssn most
Dbmn quickly, soon, here, then, now
Dcmn better, worse
Dsmn best, worst
Dbmq where, when, how, why
5.5.7 Adpositions (S)
---------------------
= ============== ============== =
P ATT VAL C
= ============== ============== =
1 Type Preposition e
Postposition o
= ============== ============== =
Notes:
Postpositions are rare in English.
"possessive" 's and ' might be considered postpositions, especially if
the alternative is to assign them to the unique membership class
(where by definition they would be unrelated).
Examples:
Se in, near, behind,...
So notwithstanding, ago
5.5.8 Conjunctions (C)
----------------------
= ============== ============== =
P ATT VAL C
= ============== ============== =
1 Type Coordinating c
Subordinating s
- -------------- -------------- -
2 Comp-Type Infinitive i Comp-Type added
Finite f
- -------------- -------------- -
3 Coord-Position Initial i Coord-Position added
Non-initial n
= ============== ============== =
Notes:
Subordinating conjunctions are often identical to prepositions
(before, after, since, ...).
"Comp-Type" encodes information about the complement of subordinating
conjunctions. Present-participle complements have not been allowed for
here; they consist of bare VPs and are often treated as nominal
constructions, the words that introduce them (by, after, etc.) being
classified as prepositions.
"Coord-Position" encodes the distinction between elements of a
discontinuous coordination. "Initial" conjunctions are those that
appear before the first conjunct, and "Non-initial" conjunctions are
those that appear elsewhere. There is a dependency between initial and
non-initial conjunctions ('both...and' but not 'either...and') which
is not expressed in these attributes.
Examples:
Ccn and, or, but
Cci either, neither, both
Csi for
Csf that, because, ...
5.5.9 Numerals (M)
------------------
= ============== ============== =
P ATT VAL C
= ============== ============== =
1 Type Cardinal c
Ordinal o
= ============== ============== =
Notes:
"Function" depends on syntactic context.
These have not been subsumed under adjectives, pronouns, determiners,
etc. because the internal structure of complex numerals is
idiosyncratic.
Examples:
Mc six
Mo sixth