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Classroom:LING2208 - Gender Annotation in Norwegian Bokmål

Eli Muus

In my text 'Simons katt' I have chosen to annotate the nouns for gender only in the stem of the noun and not in the suffix. The suffixes I have typically annotated for number and definiteness. Here is an example of some typical noun annotations for gender:

Så lander flua på lampa som står ved stolen til eieren, så katten hopper på lampa og bekker den.
DEG
PRT
lander
lander
landPRES
V
flua
flua
flySGDEF
NFEM
onLOC
PREP
lampa
lampa
lampSGDEF
NFEM
som
som
 
PNrel
står
står
standPRES
V
ved
ved
by
PREP
stolen
stolen
chairSGDEF
NMASC
til
til
DIR
PREP
eieren
eieren
ownerDEFSG
NMASC
,
,
 
PUN
DEG
PRT
katten
katten
catDEFSG
NMASC
hopper
hopper
jumpPRES
V
LOC
PREP
lampa
lampa
lampSGDEF
NFEM
og
og
and
CONJ
bekker
bekker
 PRES
V
den
den
it3SGCOMMDEF
DET
.
 
 
PUN


It would have been possible to do this annotation differently, for example to annotate the stem only as a noun and to annotate the suffix for the gender, as this is where the gender is visible, as the suffix varies depending on gender of the noun. I have followed the convention of other annotators in TypeCraft in choosing to annotate the stem for gender.

It would also be possible to annotate both the stem and the suffix for gender. This would be particularly useful if the stem noun is perceived to have one gender, but the suffix reflects another gender. One could then quite easily illustrate this phenomenon in the annotation. I initially thought this was the case with a few of the nouns in my text, but have since realised that my first intuition was wrong.

In my text I use referential pronouns that can be used to refer to both masculine and feminine nouns. I have annotated these as being common gender. See example below:

Men så hører han den innimellom, og da hopper den på gardinene og revner gardinene.
men
men
but
CONJC
DEG
PRT
hører
hører
hearPRES
V
han
han
he3SG
PN
den
den
it3SGCOMMDEF
DET
innimellom
innimellom
occasionally
ADVtemp
,
,
 
PUN
og
og
and
CONJ
da
da
 
 
hopper
hopper
jumpPRES
V
den
den
it3SGCOMMDEF
DET
onLOC
PREP
gardinene
gardinene
curtainPLDEF
NFEM
og
og
and
CONJ
revner
revner
tearPRES
V
gardinene
gardinene
curtainPLDEF
NFEM
.
 
 
PUN


Note that the two 'den' in this example refers back to two different nouns. The first refers back to 'flua', a feminine noun in a previous sentence. The second refers back to 'han'/'katten', a masculine pronoun/noun.