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own tags. Since verbal derivation is written conjunctively (like word formation in
European languages), a single ‘verb’ tag (V) proved sufficient (cf. Table 4). As with
parts of tense morphology and with word formation in European languages, an analysis
of Northern Sotho verbal derivations is left to a separate tool (e.g. to a morphological
analyser; see the discussion in Taljard & Bosch 2005).
Other tags cover invariable lexical items:
• adverbs (ADV) and numerals (NUM);
• tense/mood/aspect markers for present tense (PRES), future (FUT), and
progressive (PROG);
• auxiliaries (AUX) and copulative verbs (VCOP);
• ideophones (IDEO); and,
• different (semantically defined) kinds of particles that mark a hortative
(HORT), questions (QUE), as well as agentive (PAAGEN), connective (PACON),
copulative (PACOP), instrumental (PAINS), locative (PALOC) and temporal (PATEMP)
constructs.
In principle, our approach to the design of tagsets for nouns and verbs is similar to
the one of Van Rooy and Pretorius (2003) for Setswana, but it is much less complex.
In the case of verbs we agree on the allocation of a single tag for verb stem plus
suffix(es) as well as on separate tags for verbal prefixes:
“[…] verbs are preceded by a number of prefixes, which are regarded as
separate tokens for the purposes of tagging. The verb stem, containing the
root and a number of suffixes (as well as the reflexive prefix) receives a single
tag.“ (Van Rooy & Pretorius 2003:211)
Likewise, for nouns, we are in agreement that at this stage in the development of
tagsets, certain subclassifications such as the separate identification of deverbatives
should be excluded (cf. Van Rooy & Pretorius 2003:210). Our approach differs from Van
Rooy and Pretorius among others, in that a much smaller tagset is compiled for both
verbs and nouns. In the case of verbs, we do not consider modal categories, and in the
case of nouns, we honour subclasses but not divisions in terms of relational nouns and
proper names. Consider the following examples illustrating basic differences in terms
of the approaches as well as of the complexity of the tags:
(1) Nouns
a) Mosadi ‘woman’
Tswana (Van Rooy & Pretorius 2003:217):
104