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Interset Features and Values
pos
Part of speech.
| Value | Description |
| noun | noun |
| adj | adjective |
| det | determiner |
| pron | pronoun |
| num | numeral, number |
| verb | verb |
| adv | adverb |
| prep | preposition |
| inf | infinitive mark: English “to,” Danish “at,” Swedish “att.” Sometimes tagged as particle, sometimes as conjunction, sometimes has its own tag. |
| conj | conjunction |
| part | particle |
| int | interjection |
| punc | punctuation |
subpos
Detailed part of speech.
| Value | Main pos | Description |
| prop | noun | proper noun (“George”, “Bush”, “Paris”) |
| pdt | adj | predeterminer (adjectival word that can stand before an article, such as all in all the flowers) |
| pers | pron | personal pronoun |
| clit | pron | clitic personal pronoun (Czech “mě”, “ti”, “mu”, “se”, “si”…) |
| recip | pron | reciprocal pronoun (Danish “hinanden”) |
| digit | num | number written using digits |
| roman | num | number written using Roman numerals (“XIV”) |
| card | num | cardinal number |
| ord | num | ordinal number |
| mult | num | multiplier number (“five times”) |
| frac | num | fraction (“one fifth”) |
| aux | verb, part | auxiliary verb used to construct complex verb forms (Czech “být”, English “have”, “will”) |
| mod | verb | modal verb (German “dürfen”, “können”, “mögen”, “müssen”, “sollen”, “wollen”, “wissen”; Czech “muset”, “mít”, “moci”, “smět”, “umět”, “chtít”; English “must”, “can”, “shall”); note that adverbs and particles have their own mod subpos |
| intr | verb | intransitive verb (does not have object) |
| tran | verb | transitive verb (does have object) |
| verbconj | verb | finite verb with the enclitic “-ť” (Czech “neboť” = “because”) |
| man | adv | adverb of manner |
| loc | adv | adverb of location |
| tim | adv | adverb of time |
| deg | adv | adverb of quantity or degree |
| cau | adv | adverb of cause (“why”) |
| mod | adv, part | modal particle (Bulgarian “май” = “possibly”, “нека” = “let”; Czech “ať”, “kéž”, “nechť”) or adverb of modal nature (Bulgarian “апропо”); note that verbs have their own mod subpos |
| ex | adv | existential “there” in English |
| voc | prep | vocalized preposition (Czech “ve” as opposed to base form “v”) |
| preppron | prep | preposition and pronoun in one word (Czech “proň” = “pro něj”, “nač” = “na co”) |
| comprep | prep | first part of compound preposition (Czech “nehledě na”, “vzhledem k”) |
| coor | conj | coordinating conjunction |
| sub | conj | subordinating conjunction |
| emp | part | particle of emphasis (Bulgarian “даже” = “even”) |
| sent | punc | artificial sentence root node, beginning of sentence |
synpos
Does the pronoun or numeral behave syntactically as a noun, adjective, or adverb?
| Value | Description |
| subst | substantive (like a noun) |
| attr | attributive (like an adjective) |
| adv | adverbial (like an adverb) |
poss
Is this a possessive adjective or pronoun?
| Value | Description |
| poss | possessive |
reflex
Is this a reflexive pronoun?
| Value | Description |
| reflex | reflexive |
negativeness
Distinguishes also negative pronouns like “nothing.”
| Value | Description |
| pos | positive, affirmative |
| neg | negative |
definiteness
Distinguishes also determinative (“this”) and indefinite (“some”) pronouns.
| Value | Description |
| col | collective: all, every |
| ind | indefinite |
| def | definite |
| red | reduced: used in construct state in Arabic. If two nouns are in genitive relation, the first one has “reduced definiteness,” the second is the genitive. |
| wh | interrogative or relative (deprecated!) |
| int | only interrogative |
| rel | only relative |
subjobj
Distinguishes subject and object forms of pronouns in, e.g., Swedish.
Value Description
subj subject
obj object
foreign
| Value | Description |
| foreign | foreign word (not a loan word but a citation in a foreign language — e.g., the title of a foreign book) |
gender, possgender
Possgender is possessor's gender.
| Value | Description |
| masc | masculine |
| fem | feminine |
| com | common, utrum |
| neut | neuter |
animateness
| Value | Description |
| anim | animate |
| inan | inanimate |
number, possnumber
Possnumber is possessor's number.
| Value | Description |
| sing | singular |
| dual | dual |
| plu | plural |
case
| Value | Description |
| nom | nominative |
| gen | genitive |
| dat | dative |
| acc | accusative or oblique |
| voc | vocative |
| loc | locative |
| ins | instrumental |
compdeg
Degree of comparison.
Value Description
norm non-comparative, first degree (we hesitate to call it “positive”, since negative properties can be compared, too)
comp comparative, second degree
sup superlative, third degree
abs absolute superlative
person
| Value | Description |
| 1 | first (I, we) |
| 2 | second (you) |
| 3 | third (he, she, it, they) |
politeness
| Value | Description |
| inf | informal (Czech “ty/vy”, German “du/ihr”, Spanish “tú/vosotros”) |
| pol | polite (Czech “vy”, German “Sie”, Spanish “usted”) |
| Value | Description |
| fin | finite |
| inf | infinitive |
| sup | supine (with motion verbs: “go do something”; infinitive used in languages where there is no supine) |
| part | participle (present (“doing”), past (“done”), passive (Czech “udělán” distinguished from adjective “udělaný” by variant=short)), gerundive |
| trans | transgressive, adverbial participle (modifies other verbs, behaves like adverb; Czech present “dělaje”, past “udělav”) |
| ger | gerund (verbal noun) |
mood
| Value | Description |
| ind | indicative |
| imp | imperative |
| sub | subjunctive, conditional |
| jus | jussive (přací) |
tense
| Value | Description |
| past | past |
| pres | present |
| fut | future |
subtense
Finer classification of tenses, may not be available in all languages. (And in many languages, these tenses are built using auxiliaries, rather than special morphemes.) Having these separated from the main past-present-future distinction allows that drivers need not check for aorist/imperfect, if they know just one past tense.
Note that, unfortunately, imperfect tense is not always the same as past tense + imperfective aspect. For instance, in Bulgarian, there is lexical aspect, inherent in verb meaning, and grammatical aspect, which does not necessarily always match the lexical one. In main clauses, imperfective verbs can have imperfect tense and perfective verbs have perfect tense. However, both rules can be violated in embedded clauses. Aorist is aspect-neutral and can freely appear with both imperfective and perfective verbs.
| Value | Description |
| aor | aorist |
| imp | imperfect |
aspect
| Value | Description |
| imp | imperfect |
| perf | perfect |
voice
| Value | Description |
| act | active |
| pass | passive |
abbr
Is this an abbreviation?
| Value | Description |
| abbr | abbreviation |
hyph
Is this a part of a hyphenated compound?
| Value | Description |
| hyph | hyphenated prefix (“anglo-” in “anglo-saxon”) |
style
| Value | Description |
| arch | archaic, obsolete, rare |
| form | formal, literary |
| norm | normal, neutral |
| coll | colloquial |
variant
Allows for distinguishing between word forms that otherwise would share values of all features.
| Value | Description |
| short | short form |
| long | long form |
| 0 | variant form 0 |
| 1 | variant form 1 |
| 2 | variant form 2 |
| 3 | variant form 3 |
| 4 | variant form 4 |
| 5 | variant form 5 |
| 6 | variant form 6 |
| 7 | variant form 7 |
| 8 | variant form 8 |
| 9 | variant form 9 |
The tagset feature identifies the source tag set driver. Value should be identical to the name of the driver that filled the feature values. Works together with the “other” feature.
Feature “other”
Any value or reference to array or hash is allowed. Serves to preserve information if the decoding driver happens to be the one who did the encoding. No other driver should expect anything meaningful here.
Only information that cannot be stored in other features should be stored here.
The apparently easiest approach — to store the complete original tag — would not work if the user needs to change feature values between decode() and encode().
