Lingala/Universal Dependencies

Lingala Universal Dependencies are documented on this page. Related models and corpora are available on GitHub.

Evaluation

UD Parser Evaluation

	lin.withmorph.udpipe	lin.nomorph.udpipe	Number of forms	Number of sentences
lin.annotated.ud.conllu	UAS: 69.85%, LAS: 61.45%	UAS: 61.83%, LAS: 53.44%	262	12
lin.annotated2.ud.conllu	UAS: 39.82%, LAS: 21.24%	UAS: 29.20%, LAS: 20.35%	113	8

The lower stats for lin.annotated2.ud.conllu are to be expected since the text for this corpus was drawn from a completely different source with a very different style.

Dependency Relations

Examples of dependency relations are shown below. Note that Lingala has some odd constructions with nouns and verbs that can allow them to function as if they were a different part of speech, so sometimes a certain dependency might seem to correspond to an otherwise incompatible part of speech.

ccomp

The ccomp relation is used in the manner described in the UD documentation: it denotes a clause relating to a main verb that is a core argument. This comes up very frequently in the Book of Mormon corpus that was being used for annotations, since the construction "It came to pass that..." is used quite frequently. The verb following "that" has a ccomp dependency to "came."

For a basic example, consider the following partial sentence:

"<Mpe>"
	"mpé" cngcoo @cc #1->2
"<esalemaki>"
	"kosalema" v urp p3 sp nn @root #2->0
"<ete>"
	"ete" cnjsub @mark #3->4
"<azongaki>"
	"kozónga" v urp p3 sg aa @ccomp #4->2

This is translated "It came to pass that he returned..." Here, "returned" has a ccomp dependency to "came." For a slightly more complicated example, consider the following excerpt:

"<Mpe>"
	"mpé" cngcoo @cc #1->2
"<esalemaki>"
	"kosalema" v urp p3 sp nn @root #2->0
"<ete>"
	"ete" cnjsub @mark #3->8
"<bo>"
	"bó" cnjsub @mark #4->5
"<etangaki>"
	"kotánga" v urp p3 sp nn @advcl #5->8
"<ye>"
	"yé" prn pers p3 sg aa @nsubj #6->5
"<,>"
	"," cm @punct #7->5
"<atondisamaki>"
	"kotónda" v caus pass urp p3 sg aa @ccomp #8->2

This is translated "And it came to pass that as he read he was filled..." As before, "filled" has a ccomp dependency to "came," but in this example there is an intervening advcl.

nmod

The nmod relation is used quite frequently. Most frequently, it indicates possession, since possession in Lingala is denoted by use of the connective ya followed by the possessor (this takes the translation "the X of Y"). It is also used quite frequently for the object of prepositional phrases that describe a noun, typically some sort of spatial qualifier.

The following examples show the use of nmod for possession:

"<mpe>"
	"mpé" cngcoo @cc #1->2
"<amibwakaki>"
	"kobwáka" v refl urp p3 sg aa @root #2->0
"<likolo>"
	"likoló" n cl5 sg @case #3->5
"<lya>"
	"lya" conn @case #4->5
"<mbeto>"
	"mbeto" n cl9 sg @obl #5->2
"<ya>"
	"ya" conn @case #6->5
"<ye>"
	"yé" prn pers p3 sg aa @nmod #7->5

This is translated "And he cast himself upon his bed." Or, more literally, "And he cast himself on top of the bed of his." The personal pronoun ye has an nmod dependence to the bed. (Note that likolo is marked with a case dependence here despite being a noun. Likolo means "the top," but can effectively function as a preposition when used with the connective.)

The following example has two examples of the nmod dependence -- one to denote possession and the other to give a spatial qualification through the use of a preposition.

"<Mpe>"
	"mpé" cngcoo @cc #1->2
"<esalemaki>"
	"kosalema" v urp p3 sp nn @root #2->0
"<ete>"
	"ete" cnjsub @mark #3->4
"<azongaki>"
	"kozónga" v urp p3 sg aa @ccomp #4->2
"<o>"
	"o" pr @case #5->6
"<ndako>"
	"ndako" n cl1 sg @obl #6->4
"<ya>"
	"ya" conn @case #7->8
"<yemei>"
	"yemei" prn pers p1 sg aa @nmod #8->6
"<o>"
	"o" pr @case #9->10
"<Yelusaleme>"
	"Yelusaleme" noun prop @nmod #10->6
"<;>"
	";" sent @punct #11->2

This is translated "And it came to pass that he returned to his own house at Jerusalem". The nmod dependence for the pronoun yemei indicates his possession of the home and the nmod dependence for the proper noun Yelusaleme indicates the home's location in Jerusalem.