Here we deal with aspects of morphosyntactic annotation which are optional, and may be included in the annotation scheme according to need. Many of them go beyond morphosyntax and are of a syntactic or semantic nature. There is decidedly no claim to completeness. We do not recommend any of these features, but simply present them as having illustrative value. This subsection deals with generic optional features, i.e. those which are application- or task-specific. See language-specific features for another class of special extension.
[Recommended attributes Language specific optional attributes]
One might wish to introduce semantically and syntactically oriented attributes such as countability:
| (v) | Countability: | 1. Countable | 2. Mass |
[Recommended attributes Language specific optional attributes]
Additional optional attributes:
| (ix) | Aspect: | 1. Perfective | 2. Imperfective |
| (x) | Separability: | 1. Non-separable | 2. Separable |
| (xi) | Reflexivity: | 1. Reflexive | 2. Non-reflexive |
| (xii) | Auxiliary: | 1. Have | 2. Be |
Attribute (ix) is needed for Greek and Slavonic languages. It corresponds also to the Past Simple/Imperfect distinction of Romance languages.
Attribute (x) is relevant for German compound verbs (fängt ...an, anfangen) and also to phrasal verbs in Danish and English.
Attribute (xii) is applied to main verbs in French, German, Dutch, etc., and determines the selection of avoir or être, etc., as auxiliary for the Perfect.
Additional optional value for recommended attribute Status:
| (viii) | Status: | 3. Semi-auxiliary |
In addition to main and auxiliary verbs, it may be useful (e.g. in English) to recognise an intermediate category of semi-auxiliary for such verbs as be going to, have got to, ought to.
[Recommended attributes Language specific optional attributes]
Additional optional attributes:
| (v) | Inflection-type: | 1. Weak-Flection | 2. Strong-Flection | 3. Mixed |
| (vi) | Use: | 1. Attributive | 2. Predicative | |
| (vii) | NP Function: | 1. Premodifying | 2. Postmodifying | 3. Head-function |
Weak and Strong (attribute (v)) are values for adjectival inflection in the Germanic languages German, Dutch and Danish. The syntactic attribute (vi) makes a distinction, for example, between main (Attributive) and asleep (Predicative) in English.
[Recommended attributes Language specific optional attributes]
Additional optional attributes:
| (ix) | Special Pronoun Type: | 1. Personal | 2. Reflexive | 3. Reciprocal |
| (x) | Wh-Type: | 1. Interrogative | 2. Relative | 3. Exclamatory |
| (xi) | Politeness: | 1. Polite | 2. Familiar |
Attribute (xi) is limited to second-person pronouns. In some languages (e.g. French) it is possible to treat Polite and Familiar simply as pragmatic values encoded through other attributes -- especially person and number. In languages where there are special polite pronoun forms (e.g. Dutch u and Spanish usted), the additional Politeness attribute is required.
[Recommended attributes Language specific optional attributes]
| (ii) | Adverb-Type: | 1. General | 2. Degree | |
| (iii) | Polarity: | 1. Wh-type | 2. Non-wh-type | |
| (iv) | Wh-type: | 1. Interrogative | 2. Relative | 3. Exclamatory |
Attribute (ii) allows the tagset to distinguish degree adverbs, which have a distinctive syntactic function, (such as very, so, too) from others. Attribute (iv) enables the tagset to mark separately the Wh- or Qu- adverbs which are interrogative, relative or exclamatory in function. The relevant adverbs (in English) are when, where, how and why.
[Recommended attributes Language specific optional attributes]
| (i) | Type: | 2. Fused prep-art |
The additional value Fused prep-art is for the benefit of those who do not find it practical to split fused words such as French au (= à + le) into two textwords. This very common phenomenon of a fused preposition + article in West European languages should preferably, however, be handled by assigning two tags to the same orthographic word (one for the preposition and one for the article).
[Recommended attributes Language specific optional attributes]
| (ii) | Coord-Type: | 1. Simple | 2. Correlative | 3. Initial | 4. Non-initial |
This attribute subclassifies coordinating conjunctions. It is easier to assign one tag to one orthographic word and it is therefore suggested that the four values are assigned as follows: Simple applies to the regular type of coordinator occurring between conjuncts: German und, for example. When the same word is also placed before the first conjunct, as in French ou...ou..., the former occurrence is given the Correlative value and the latter the Simple value. When two distinct words occur, as in German weder...noch..., then the first is given the Initial value and the second the Non-initial value.
