A tagset is a list of part-of-speech tags (POS tags for short), i.e. labels used to indicate the part of speech and sometimes also other grammatical categories (case, tense etc.) of each token in a text corpus.

German corpora annotated by the RFTTagger tool use the German RFTTagger part-of-speech tagset. The RFTTagger tool is developed by Helmut Schmid and Florian Laws; for more information see Helmut Schmid and Florian Laws: Estimation of Conditional Probabilities with Decision Trees… [at COLING 2008, UK].

German RFTagger tagset

German POS tags are quite complex:

können
VFIN.Mod.3.Pl.Pres.Ind
weitere
ADJA.Comp.Nom.Pl.Fem
Informationen
N.Reg.Nom.Pl.Fem
abgerufen
VPP.Full.Psp

To see tags, use the concordance and click View options visibility.

Examples

This is how tags should be used in the CQL concordance search on the ADVANCED tab:

[tag="ADJ.*"]  finds all adjectives, e.g. gut, möglich (make sure you use straight quotation marks)
[tag="N.Reg.Nom.Pl.Fem"] finds all nouns which are regular (common nouns), in the nominative, plural, feminine
[lemma="Inf.*" & tag="N.*Pl.*"] finds all nouns in plural starting Inf- (use .* instead of each category for which you do not want to specify concrete criteria)
[lemma="Tür" & tag=".*Pl.*"] finds the plural forms of the lemma Tür in all cases

Table of common tags

This table provides a list of basic part-of-speech tags that can be used to find the whole category of a concrete part of speech, e.g. nouns [tag="N.*"]

Part of speech Tag
adjective ADJ.*
adverb ADV.*
article ART.*
conjunction CONJ.*
noun N.*
numeral CARD
preposition APPR.*
pronoun PRO\..*
verb V.*

Table of advanced tags

The following table contains all possible values of part-of-speech tags in the German RFTagger tagset. It allows you to define a specific group of adjectives, nouns, and the like which you need to lookup. For instance, all third-person plural forms of verbs in the past tense can be found by using the CQL query: [tag="VFIN..*.3.Pl.*Past.*"]

Adjectives

Value Description Tag Example
Category attributive adjectives ADJA [tag="ADJA.*"]
Degree comparative Comp [tag="ADJA.Comp.*"] finds all comparative adjectives
positive Sup
superlative Pos
Case nominative Nom
genitive Gen
dative Dat
accusative Acc [tag="ADJA.*Acc.*"] finds all adjectives in the accusative
unspecified *
Number singular Sg
plural Plural [tag="ADJA.*Dat.Pl.*"] finds all plural forms of adjectives in the dative
unspecified *
Gender feminine Fem
masculine Masc
neuter Neut
unspecified * [tag="ADJA.*\*"] finds all adjectives with unspecified gender
Category adjective with predicative or adverbial usage ADJD [tag="ADJD.*"] finds all adjectives with predicative or adverbial usage
Degree comparative Comp [tag="ADJD.Sup.*"] finds all superlative adjectives with predicative or adverbial usage
positive Sup
superlative Pos

Adverbs

Value Description Tag Example
Category adverbs ADV [tag="ADV"]finds all adverbs

Postpositions

Value Description Tag Example
Category postposition APPO [tag="APPO.*"]
Case genitive Gen
dative Dat [tag="APPO.Dat"] finds all postpositions in the dative
accusative Acc

Prepositions

The CQL query [tag="APPR.*"]finds all types of prepositions (including incorporated article) in any case, number, and gender.

Value Description Tag Example
Category preposition APPR [tag="APPR\..*"]finds all prepositions
Case genitive Gen
dative Dat [tag="APPR.Dat"] finds all prepositions in the dative
accusative Acc
Category preposition with incorporated article APPRART [tag="APPRART.*"]finds all prepositions with incorporated article
Case nominative Nom
genitive Gen
dative Dat
accusative Acc
Number singular Sg
plural Plural
unspecified *
Gender feminine Fem
masculine Masc
neuter Neut
unspecified *

Circumpositions (right part)

Value Description Tag Example
Category circumposition (right part) APZR [tag="APZR"]finds all circumposition (right part)

Articles

Value Description Tag Example
Category article ART [tag="ART.*"]finds all articles
Type definite Def
indefinite Indef [tag="ART.Indef"] finds all indefinite articles
Case nominative Nom
genitive Gen
dative Dat
accusative Acc
unspecified *
Number singular Sg
plural Plural
unspecified *
Gender feminine Fem
masculine Masc
neuter Neut
unspecified *

Cardinal numbers

Value Description Tag Example
Category cardinal number CARD [tag="CARD"]finds all cardinal numbers

Conjunctions

Value Description Tag Example
Category circumposition (right part) CONJ [tag="CONJ.*"]finds all conjunctions
Type comparative Comp
coordinating Coord
subordinating with finite clause SubFin
subordinating with infinitive SubInf

Foreign words

Value Description Tag Example
Category foreign word FM [tag="FM"]finds all foreign words

Interjections

Value Description Tag Example
Category interjection ITJ [tag="ITJ"]finds all interjections

Nouns

Value Description Tag Example
Category noun N [tag="N.*"]finds all articles
Type proper noun Name
regular noun, common noun Reg [tag="N.Reg.*"] finds all regular/common nouns
Case nominative Nom
genitive Gen
dative Dat
accusative Acc
unspecified *
Number singular Sg [tag="N.Name.*Sg.*"] finds all singular proper nouns
plural Plural
unspecified *
Gender feminine Fem
masculine Masc
neuter Neut [tag="N.*Pl.Neut*"] finds all plural neuter nouns
unspecified *

Particles

Value Description Tag Example
Category particle PART [tag="PART.*"]finds all particles
Type answer Ans
degree Deg
negation Neg [tag="PART.Neg"]finds all negative particles
“zu” particle Zu
separated verb particle Verb

Pronouns

Value Description Tag Example
Category pronoun PRO [tag="PRO.*"]
Type demonstrative Dem
indefinite Indef
interrogative Inter
personal Pers [tag="PRO.Pers.*"] find all personal pronouns
reflexive Refl
relative Rel
possessive Poss
unspecified *
Usage attributive Attr
substituting Subst [tag="PRO.Rel.Subst.*"] finds all relative pronouns that substitute
Person first 1
second 2 [tag="PRO.Dem.*2.*"] finds all 2nd-person forms of demonstrative pronouns
third 3
unspecified *
not applicable
Case nominative Nom
genitive Gen
dative Dat
accusative Acc [tag="PRO.*Acc.*"] finds all pronouns in the accusative
unspecified *
Number singular Sg
plural Plural [tag="Pro.*Dat.Pl.*"] finds all plural forms of pronouns in the dative
unspecified *
Gender feminine Fem
masculine Masc
neuter Neut
unspecified * [tag="PRO.*\*"] finds all adjectives with unspecified gender

Pronomial adverbs

Value Description Tag Example
Category pronomial adverb PROADV [tag="PROADV"]finds all pronomial adverbs
Type regular: dabei damit Dem
interrogative or relative: wie wozu Inter [tag="PROADV"]finds all interrogative/relative pronomial adverbs

Symbols

Value Description Tag Example
Category symbol SYM [tag="SYM.*]finds all symbols
Type punctuation PUN
quotation Quot
parenthesis Paren
other Other
Subtype Left Left
Right Right
colon Colon
comma Comma
sentence punctuation Sent
hyphen Hyph
slash / Slash
asterisk * Aster
continuation periods … Cont
author Auth
XY

Truncated word forms

Value Description Tag Example
Category truncated word form TRUNC [tag="TRUNC.*"]
part of speech adjective Adj
noun Noun
verb Verb

Verbs

All verbs can be found by the following CQL query: [tag="V.*"]

Value Description Tag Example
Category finite verb VFIN [tag="VFIN.*"] finds all finite verbs
Type auxiliary Aux
modal Mod
full verb Full
Person first 1
second 2
third 3
Number singular Sg
plural Plural
Tense past tense Past
present tense Pres [tag="VFIN.*Pres.*"] finds all finite verbs in the present tense
Mood indicative Ind
subjunctive Subj
Category imperative verb VIMP [tag="VIMP.*"] finds all imperative verbs
Type auxiliary Aux
modal Mod
full verb Full
Person first 1
second 2
third 3
Number singular Sg
plural Plural
Category infinitival verb VINF [tag="VINF.*"] finds all participle verbs
Type auxiliary Aux
modal Mod
full verb Full
Subtype with “zu” infix zu
no infix [tag="VINF[^z]*"] finds all participle verbs with no infix
Category participle verb VPP [tag="VPP.*"] finds all participle verbs
Type auxiliary Aux
modal Mod
full verb Full
Subtype present participle Prp
past participle Psp [tag="VPP.Psp.*"] finds all participle verbs in the past participle form

Source: http://www.cis.uni-muenchen.de/~schmid/tools/RFTagger/

German text corpora in Sketch Engine

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