The following table lists the 37 universal syntactic relations used in UD v2. It is a revised version of the relations originally described in Universal Stanford Dependencies: A cross-linguistic typology (de Marneffe et al. 2014).
The upper part of the table follows the main organizing principles of the UD taxonomy such that rows correspond to functional categories in relation to the head (core arguments of clausal predicates, non-core dependents of clausal predicates, and dependents of nominals) while columns correspond to structural categories of the dependent (nominals, clauses, modifier words, function words). The lower part of the table lists relations that are not dependency relations in the narrow sense.
Nominals Clauses Modifier words Function Words Core arguments nsubj obj iobj csubj ccomp xcomp
Non-core dependents obl vocative expl dislocated advcl advmod* discourse aux cop mark
Nominal dependents nmod appos nummod acl amod det clf case
Coordination Headless Loose Special Other conj cc fixed flat list parataxis compound orphan goeswith reparandum punct root dep
* The advmod relation is used for modifiers not only of predicates but also of other modifier words.
Individual languages may define more specific relations as subtypes of the universal types defined here. A subtyped relation always starts with the basic type, followed by a colon and the subtype string. In general, subtypes are language-specific and optional. However, some subtypes are assumed to apply to many languages and they should be considered semi-mandatory: If the language has the phenomenon that the subtype focuses on, then the subtype should be used. The following subtypes currently have the semi-mandatory status:
- acl:relcl for relative adnominal clauses
- advcl:relcl for relative clauses whose antecedent is a clause
- aux:pass for the passive auxiliary
- csubj:outer for outer clausal subjects of predicates that are clauses
- csubj:pass for clausal subjects of passive clauses
- expl:impers for reflexive markers of impersonal clauses
- expl:pass for reflexive markers of middle or passive clauses
- expl:pv for reflexive clitics with inherently reflexive verbs
- nsubj:outer for outer nominal subjects of predicates that are clauses
- nsubj:pass for nominal subjects of passive clauses
- obl:agent for demoted agents in passive clauses
The enhanced dependency representation defines further extensions of the dependency types.
Alphabetical listing (This is not the list of all relation types used in all languages. It is the list of relations that happen to have a documentation page available globally, as opposed to language-specific pages. So it contains all main types plus the semi-mandatory subtypes discussed above, plus an arbitrary selection of other subtypes. To see all subtypes that occurred in the most recent UD release, go to Relation Subtypes in the Data.)
- acl: clausal modifier of noun (adnominal clause)
- acl:relcl: relative clause modifier
- advcl: adverbial clause modifier
- advcl:relcl: adverbial relative clause modifier
- advmod: adverbial modifier
- advmod:emph: emphasizing word, intensifier
- advmod:lmod: locative adverbial modifier
- amod: adjectival modifier
- appos: appositional modifier
- aux: auxiliary
- aux:pass: passive auxiliary
- case: case marking
- cc: coordinating conjunction
- cc:preconj: preconjunct
- ccomp: clausal complement
- clf: classifier
- compound: compound
- compound:lvc: light verb construction
- compound:prt: phrasal verb particle
- compound:redup: reduplicated compounds
- compound:svc: serial verb compounds
- conj: conjunct
- cop: copula
- csubj: clausal subject
- csubj:outer: outer clause clausal subject
- csubj:pass: clausal passive subject
- dep: unspecified dependency
- det: determiner
- det:numgov: pronominal quantifier governing the case of the noun
- det:nummod: pronominal quantifier agreeing in case with the noun
- det:poss: possessive determiner
- discourse: discourse element
- dislocated: dislocated elements
- expl: expletive
- expl:impers: impersonal expletive
- expl:pass: reflexive pronoun used in reflexive passive
- expl:pv: reflexive clitic with an inherently reflexive verb
- fixed: fixed multiword expression
- flat: flat expression
- flat:foreign: foreign words
- flat:name: names
- goeswith: goes with
- iobj: indirect object
- list: list
- mark: marker
- nmod: nominal modifier
- nmod:poss: possessive nominal modifier
- nmod:tmod: temporal modifier
- nsubj: nominal subject
- nsubj:outer: outer clause nominal subject
- nsubj:pass: passive nominal subject
- nummod: numeric modifier
- nummod:gov: numeric modifier governing the case of the noun
- obj: object
- obl: oblique nominal
- obl:agent: oblique agent in passive construction
- obl:arg: oblique argument
- obl:lmod: locative modifier
- obl:tmod: temporal modifier
- orphan: orphan
- parataxis: parataxis
- punct: punctuation
- reparandum: overridden disfluency
- root: root
- vocative: vocative
- xcomp: open clausal complement