Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English, Second Edition

Note: 'POS' stands for 'part-of-speech'. The terms 'tag' and 'label' are used interchangeably, especially in connection with POS annotation.

Part-of-Speech Labels

Unlike in the PPCME1, in the PPCME2, the internal structure of constituents is indicated down to the word level (part of speech). The texts that are tagged for part of speech are in the pos directory. The POS tags are also included in the parsed files (in the psd directory), as the first set of labelled parens surrounding a word.


The verb BE

BE infinitive
BEI imperative
BEP present (including present subjunctive)
BED past (including past subjunctive)
BAG present participle
BEN perfect participle

The verb HAVE

HV infinitive
HVI imperative
HVP present (including present subjunctive)
HVD past (including past subjunctive)
HAG present participle
HVN perfect participle
HAN passive participle (verbal or adjectival)

The verb DO

DO infinitive
DOI imperative
DOP present (including present subjunctive)
DOD past (including past subjunctive)
DAG present participle
DON perfect participle
DAN passive participle (verbal or adjectival)

All other verbs

VB infinitive
VBI imperative
VBP present (including present subjunctive)
VBD past (including past subjunctive)
VAG present participle
VBN perfect participle
VAN passive participle (verbal or adjectival)

Modals/auxiliaries

MD Modal verb
MD0 Untensed modal verb
TO Infinitival TO and AT
FOR Infinitival FOR in FOR TO
FOR+TO Cliticized FORTO

Nominals

N Common noun, singular or mass
N$ Possessive noun
NS Common noun, plural
NS$ Possessive plural noun
NPR Proper noun, singular
NPR$ Possessive proper noun
NPRS Proper noun, plural
NPRS$ Possessive plural proper noun
$ Possessive ending 'S or HIS used as possessive clitic
PRO Personal pronoun
PRO$ Possessive pronoun
EX Existential THERE

Adjectives

ADJ Adjective
ADJR Adjective, comparative
ADJS Adjective, superlative

Adverbs

ADV Adverb
ADVR Adverb, comparative
ADVS Adverb, superlative

Quantifiers

Q Quantifier
QR Quantifier, comparative (MORE, LESS, FEWER)
QS Quantifier, superlative (MOST, LEAST, FEWEST)

Wh-words

WD Wh-determiner
WPRO Wh-pronoun
WPRO$ Possessive wh-pronoun
WADV Wh-adverb
WQ WHETHER

Miscellaneous

CONJ Coordinating conjunction
NUM Cardinal number
C Complementizer
D Determiner
P Preposition or subordinating conjunction
NEG Negation
RP Adverbial particle
FP Focus particle
FW Foreign word
INTJ Interjection
ALSO The words ALSO (except when = SO, AS or EVEN) and EKE
ELSE The word ELSE (in the collocation OR ELSE)
ONE The word ONE (except as focus particle)
OTHER The word OTHER (except as conjunction)
OTHER$ Possessive nominal singular use of OTHER
OTHERS Plural nominal use of OTHER
OTHERS$ Possessive nominal plural use of OTHER
SUCH The word SUCH
WARD The morpheme WARD

Punctuation

. Final punctuation (end of token) in POS files
E_S Final punctuation in parsed files
, Non-final punctuation
" Double quotation marks
' Single quotation marks
LB Line break

Non-linguistic tags

CODE Indicates non-text material
ID Token identifier