grammatical category
Let an agent handle grammatical categories by language and value, linking to specific categories and supporting learners and language technology.
Research draft, second pass
A second pass drafted this model: the structure a model of this thing needs, and what is known about it in the world. The line under this one says how the second half was obtained - researched against sources, or recalled without web access, in which case nothing here was read anywhere and every claim is a lead to verify. Unreviewed either way.
written by Claude from model knowledge without web access - no source was read, every claim is a lead to verify
Researched by: Claude
Purpose and description
Let an agent handle grammatical categories by language and value, linking to specific categories and supporting learners and language technology.
A property of words or phrases that is expressed grammatically, such as number, gender, case, person, tense, aspect, mood, voice, definiteness, countability and evidentiality, with systems varying widely across languages.
What it is for: Describing how languages encode meaning in form.
It can be identify grammatical categories in a language; compare category systems across languages; explain values such as dual number or evidentiality; annotate features in corpora.
Distinguishing features
Grammatically expressed properties
Language-specific systems
Obligatory in some languages
Annotated in linguistics
What it looks like
Not physical; marked by inflections, particles and word order.
How it is recognised
Categories such as tense or case
Feature annotations in treebanks
Parts of speech are word classes, a related notion
Related models
is a kind of - category
includes - examples
is studied by - field
is annotated by - standard
In practice
Families and kinds
nominal categories such as number, gender and case
verbal categories such as tense, aspect and mood
person and voice
definiteness
evidentiality
Standards and regulation
Universal Dependencies feature inventory
UniMorph schema
Failure modes and hazards
Assuming categories are universal
Confusing category and word class
Also called
Where this came from
wikidata · CC0 1.0
Drafted structure
Bundle to layer to finding to question, as the second pass will find it: 4 bundles · 8 layers · 8 findings · 16 questions.
Category Which category.
Categories differ.
Identify
Category.
Identify
Category identification.
- Which grammatical category is being expressed? definition
- What values does it have in this language? provenance
Marking
How expressed.
Marking
Marking.
- Is it marked by inflection, particles or word order? definition
- Is marking obligatory? boundary
Comparison Across languages.
Systems vary.
Typology
Cross-linguistic.
Typology
Typology.
- How do languages differ in this category, according to typological sources? provenance
- Which languages have unusual values? provenance
Learners
Difficulties.
Learners
Learner difficulties.
- Why might learners find this category hard? definition
- Which exercises help? action
Technology Annotation.
Software tags features.
Features
Annotation.
Features
Feature annotation.
- How is this category annotated in Universal Dependencies? provenance
- Which values are defined? definition
Tools
Morphological analysers.
Tools
Tools.
- Which tools analyse this category automatically? provenance
- How accurate are they? measurement
Theory Concepts.
Distinctions matter.
Versus word class
Distinction.
Versus word class
Category versus word class.
- How does a grammatical category differ from a part of speech? definition
- Which applies here? boundary
Meaning
Semantics.
Meaning
Semantic link.
- How does the grammatical category relate to meaning? definition
- Is the relation always direct? boundary
What the second pass must settle
- Should each category be a separate entry?
- How should feature inventories be linked?
- How should language-specific values be recorded?