English TreeTagger PoS tagset with modifications

This is a modified tagset of the default TreeTagger tagset.

An Example of a tag in the CQL concordance search box: [tag="NNS"] finds all nouns in the plural, e.g. people, years (note: please make sure that you use straight double quotation marks)

Tagset

POS Tag	Description	Example
CC	coordinating conjunction	and
CD	cardinal number	1, one
CDZ	possesive pronoun	one’s
DT	determiner	the
EX	existential there	there is
FW	foreign word	d’hoevre
IN	preposition, subordinating conjunction	in, of, like
IN/that	that as subordinator	that
JJ	adjective	green
JJR	adjective, comparative	greener
JJS	adjective, superlative	greenest
LS	list marker	1)
MD	modal	could, will
NN	noun, singular or mass	table
NNS	noun plural	tables
NNSZ	possessive noun plural	people’s, women’s
NNZ	possessive noun, singular or mass	year’s, world’s
NP	proper noun, singular	John
NPS	proper noun, plural	Vikings
NPSZ	possesive proper noun, plural	Boys’, Workers’
NPZ	possesive noun, singular	Britain’s, God’s
PDT	predeterminer	both the boys
PP	personal pronoun	I, he, it
PPZ	possessive pronoun	my, his
RB	adverb	however, usually, naturally, here, good
RBR	adverb, comparative	better
RBS	adverb, superlative	best
RP	particle	give up
SENT	Sentence-break punctuation	. ! ?
SYM	Symbol	/ [ = *
TO	infinitive ‘to’	togo
UH	interjection	uhhuhhuhh
VB	verb be, base form	be
VBD	verb be, past tense	was, were
VBG	verb be, gerund/present participle	being
VBN	verb be, past participle	been
VBP	verb be, present, non-3d person	am, are
VBZ	verb be, 3rd person sing. present	is
VH	verb have, base form	have
VHD	verb have, past tense	had
VHG	verb have, gerund/present participle	having
VHN	verb have, past participle	had
VHP	verb have, sing. present, non-3d	have
VHZ	verb have, 3rd person sing. present	has
VV	verb, base form	take
VVD	verb, past tense	took
VVG	verb, gerund/present participle	taking
VVN	verb, past participle	taken
VVP	verb, present, not 3rd person	take
VVZ	verb, 3rd person sing. present	takes
WDT	wh-determiner	which
WP	wh-pronoun	who, what
WPZ	possessive wh-pronoun	whose
WRB	wh-abverb	where, when
Z	possessive ending	‘s

Main differences to default Penn tagset

In TreeTagger tagset

• Distinguishes be (VB) and have (VH) from other (non-modal) verbs (VV)
• For proper nouns, NNP and NNPS have become NP and NPS
• SENT for end-of-sentence punctuation (other punctuation tags may also differ)

In TreeTagger version 2 + Sketch Engine

• token “to” can be tagged as IN when it is a preposition or TO only when it is an infinitive marker

In TreeTagger version 3 + Sketch Engine

• indefinite markers “a/an” are both lemmatized as “a”