Part-of-Sp eechTagging Guidelines for the Penn Treebank Pro ject 3rd Revision, 2nd printing Beatrice Santorini 1 June 1990 1 Second printing February 1995 up dated and slightly reformatted by Rob ert MacIntyre. The text of this version app ears to b e the same as the rst printing, but subtle di erences may exist. The tags for prop er noun and p ersonal pronoun were altered in late 1992 in order to avoid con icts with bracketing tags; this version re ects the new tag names. Contents 1 Intro duction 1 2 List of parts of sp eech with corresp onding tag 1 3 List of tags with corresp onding part of sp eech 6 4 Problematic cases 7 4.1 Confusing parts of sp eech :: ::: :::: ::: :::: ::: :::: ::: :::: ::: :::: : 7 4.2 Sp eci c words and collo cations :: :::: ::: :::: ::: :::: ::: :::: ::: :::: : 22 5 General tagging conventions 31 5.1 Part of sp eech and syntactic function ::: ::: :::: ::: :::: ::: :::: ::: :::: : 31 5.2 Vertical slash convention ::: ::: :::: ::: :::: ::: :::: ::: :::: ::: :::: : 31 5.3 Capitalized words ::: :::: ::: :::: ::: :::: ::: :::: ::: :::: ::: :::: : 32 5.4 Abbreviations :: ::: :::: ::: :::: ::: :::: ::: :::: ::: :::: ::: :::: : 32 1 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1 Intro duction This section addresses the linguistic issues that arise in connection with annotating texts by part of sp eech \tagging". Section 2 is an alphab etical list of the parts of sp eech enco ded in the annotation system of the Penn Treebank Pro ject, along with their corresp onding abbreviations \tags" and some information concerning their de nition. This section allows you to nd an unfamiliar tag by lo oking up a familiar part of sp eech. Section 3 recapitulates the information in Section 2, but this time the information is alphab etically ordered by tags. This is the section to consult in order to nd out what an unfamiliar tag means. Since the parts of sp eech are probably familiartoyou from high scho ol English, you should have little diculty in assimilating the tags themselves. However, it is often quite dicult to decide which tag is appropriate in a particular context. The two sections 4.1 and 4.2 therefore include examples and guidelines on how to tag problematic cases. If you are uncertain ab out whether a given tag is correct or not, refer to these sections in order to ensure a consistently annotated text. Section 4.1 discusses parts of sp eech that are easily confused and gives guidelines on how to tag such cases, while Section 4.2 contains an alphab etical list of sp eci c problematic words and collo cations. Finally, Section 5 discusses some general tagging conventions. One general rule, however, is so imp ortant that we state it here. Many texts are not mo dels of go o d prose, and some contain outright errors and slips of the p en. Do not b e tempted to correct a tag to what it would b e if the text were correct; rather, it is the incorrect word that should b e tagged correctly. If you have questions that you do not nd covered, b e sure to let us know so that we can incorp orate a discussion of them into up dates of this guide. 2 List of parts of sp eech with corresp onding tag Adjective|JJ Hyphenated comp ounds that are used as mo di ers are tagged as adjectives JJ. EXAMPLES: happy-go-lucky/JJ one-of-a-kind/JJ run-of-the-mill/JJ Ordinal numb ers are tagged as adjectives JJ, as are comp ounds of the form n -th X-est, like f ourth-largest. Adjective, comparative|JJR Adjectives with the comparative ending -er and a comparative meaning are tagged JJR. More and l ess when used as adjectives, as in more or less mail, are also tagged as JJR. More and l ess can also b e tagged as JJR when they o ccur by themselves; see the entries for these words in Section 4.2. Adjectives with a comparative meaning but without the comparative ending -er, like superior, should simply b e tagged as JJ. Adjectives with the ending -er but without a strictly comparative meaning \more X", like f urther in f urther details, should also simply b e tagged as JJ. Adjective, sup erlative|JJS Adjectives with the sup erlative ending -est as well as w orst are tagged as JJS. M ost and least when used as adjectives, as in t he most or the least mail, are also tagged as JJS. M ost and least can also b e tagged as JJS when they o ccur by themselves; see the entries for these words in Section 4.2. Adjectives with a sup erlative meaning but without the sup erlative ending -est, like f irst, l ast or u nsurpassed, should simply b e tagged as JJ. 2 LIST OF PARTS OF SPEECH WITH CORRESPONDING TAG 2 Adverb|RB This category includes most words that end in -ly as well as degree words like q uite, too and v ery, p osthead mo di ers like e nough and i ndeed as in good enough, v ery wel l indeed, and negative markers like not, n' t and n ever. Adverb, comparative|RBR Adverbs with the comparative ending -er but without a strictly comparative meaning, like l ater in We can always come by later, should simply b e tagged as RB. Adverb, sup erlative|RBS Article|DT see \Determiner" Cardinal number|CD Common noun, plural|NNS see \Noun, plural" Common noun, singular or mass|NN see \Noun, singular or mass" Comparative adjective|JJR see \Adjective, comparative" Comparative adverb|RBR see \Adverb, comparative" Conjunction, co ordinating|CC see \Co ordinating conjunction" Conjunction, sub ordinating|IN see \Prep osition or sub ordinating conjunction" Co ordinating conjunction|CC This category includes and, but, nor, or, yet as in Y et it's cheap, cheap yet good, as well as the mathematical op erators p lus, m inus, l ess, t imes in the sense of \multiplied by" and o ver in the sense of \divided by", when they are sp elled out. For in the sense of \b ecause" is a co ordinating conjunction CC rather than a sub ordinating conjunction IN. EXAMPLE: He asked to b e transferred, for/CC he was unhappy. So in the sense of \so that," on the other hand, is a sub ordinating conjunction IN. Determiner|DT This category includes the articles a n, e very, no and the, the inde nite determiners a nother, any and s ome, e ach, e ither as in e ither way, n either as in n either decision, t hat, t hese, t his and t hose, and instances of all and b oth when they do not precede a determiner or p ossessive pronoun as in all roads or b oth times. Instances of all or b oth that do precede a determiner or p ossessive pronoun are tagged as predeterminers PDT. Since any noun phrase can contain at most one determiner, the fact that s uch can o ccur together with a determiner as in t he only such case means that it should b e tagged as an adjective JJ, unless it precedes a determiner, as in suchagood time, in which case it is a predeterminer PDT. 2 LIST OF PARTS OF SPEECH WITH CORRESPONDING TAG 3 Exclamation|UH see \Interjection" Existential t here|EX Existential t here is the unstressed t here that triggers inversion of the in ected verb and the logical sub ject of a sentence. EXAMPLES: There/EX was a party in progress. There/EX ensued a melee. Foreign word|FW Use your judgment as to what is a foreign word. For me, yoga is an NN, while b^ete noire and p ersona non grata should b e tagged b^ete/FW noire/FW and p ersona/FW non/FW grata/FW, resp ectively. Gerund|VBG see \Verb, gerund or present participle" Interjection|UH This category includes my as in M y, what a gorgeous day, oh, please, see as in See, it's like this, uh, well and yes, among others. List item marker|LS This category includes letters and numerals when they are used to identify items in a list. Mo dal verb|MD This category includes all verbs that don't takean-s ending in the third p erson singular present: can, c ould,dare, may, m ight, m ust, o ught, s hal l, s hould, will, w ould. Negation|RB see \Adverb" Noun, plural|NNS Noun, singular or mass|NN Numeral, cardinal|CD see \Cardinal numb er" Numeral, ordinal|JJ see \Adjective" Ordinal number|JJ see \Adjective" Participle, past|VBN see \Verb, past participle" Participle, present|VBG see \Verb, gerund or present participle" Particle|RP This category includes a numb er of mostly monosyllabicwords that also double as directional adverbs and prep ositions. Consult the headings \IN or RB," \IN or RP" and \RB or RP" in Section 4.1 for further details. 2 LIST OF PARTS OF SPEECH WITH CORRESPONDING TAG 4 Past participle|VBN see \Verb, past participle" Past tense verb|VBD see \Verb, past tense" Personal pronoun|PRP see also \Possessive pronoun" This category includes the p ersonal pronouns prop er, without regard for case distinctions I , me, you, he, him, etc., the re exive pronouns ending in -self or -selves, and the nominal p ossessive pronouns m ine, y ours, his, h ers, o urs and t heirs. The adjectival p ossessive forms my, y our, his, her, its, our and t heir,on the other hand, are tagged PRP$. Possessive ending|POS The p ossessive ending on nouns ending in 's or ' is split o by the tagging algorithm and tagged as if it were a separate word.