DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15870235
title: Annotated database of deverbal nominalizations in Serbian

description: Annotated database of deverbal nominalizations in Serbian

This dataset contains annotated data on deverbal nominalizations in Serbian. The study aimed to examine to what extent the behaviour of Serbian deverbal nominalizations can be explained through the interaction of various morphological and aspectual factors. More specifically, the aim was to determine the degree to which eventive deverbal nominalizations in English and Serbian exhibit verbal properties. 

Extracting tokens from corpus

The data were collected through corpus queries and subsequently manually annotated. To obtain an initial sample, a search was conducted in the CLASSLA-web.sr corpus (Ljubešić et al. 2024) using a CQL query targeting nouns occurring after the verb očekivati ‘expect’. This verb was chosen as it provides a context in which deverbal nominalizations are likely to occur relatively frequently. The aim was to analyse between 3,000 and 4,000 valid example sentences containing nominalizations as complements of očekivati. Sentences that did not contain deverbal nominalizations or were duplicates were excluded from further annotation. In total, 6,008 examples were extracted from the CLASSLA-web.sr corpus and manually annotated in an Excel spreadsheet.

Annotation process

Identification of complements 

First, relevant complements were identified within each sentence. More specifically, each sentence was analysed to determine whether the complement of the verb očekivati ‘expect’ was a deverbal nominalization. Sentences containing such complements were further annotated. In cases where two nominalizations appeared as complements of očekivati within the same sentence, both were annotated. For instance, in (1), both podrška ‘support’ and pomoć ‘help’ occur as complements of the verb; therefore, each nominalization was annotated in a separate row, and the sentence in (1) appears twice in the dataset. Sentences that did not contain deverbal nominalization complements were marked accordingly and were not further annotated.

(1)

Očekujemo  podršku                i       pomoć        institucija Republike   Srpske.                                                                                       

expect          support.ACC.SG  and   help.ACC.SG institutions Republic Srpska                                                                                                 

“We expect the support and help of the institutions of the Republic of Srpska.”

Recording the Nominalization

Once the relevant nominalizations were identified, each was recorded in the following column in its citation form (nominative singular). This was followed by the annotation of several morphosyntactic features. Each deverbal nominalization was annotated for the type of suffix it contained, the base verb and its aspect, as well as the presence of a genitive complement.

Determining the suffix 

With regard to suffix type, the following final suffixes were annotated: -nje (e.g. povećanje ‘increase’), -nja (e.g. sadnja ‘planting’), -ak (e.g. dolazak ‘arrival’), -ka (e.g. podrška ‘support’), -ba (e.g. borba ‘fight’), -cija (e.g. reakcija ‘reaction’), -ica (e.g. nestašica ‘shortage’), 0 (indicating a zero suffix or a phonologically minimal suffix, e.g. napad ‘attack’), and -stvo (e.g. uputstvo ‘instruction’). Deverbal nominalizations that could not be classified under any of these categories were marked with "r", indicating 'remainder' or 'residual' types (e.g. učešće ‘participation’).

Determining the base verb

The next step was to determine the base verb of the identified nominalisation. Hence, one column was filled with base verbs of the nominalizations in the infinitive form (e.g. saditi ‘to plant’ for sadnja ‘planting’).

Determining the aspect of the base verb

Regarding the aspect of the base verb, it was necessary to determine whether the base verb from which the nominalization was derived was perfective (e.g. završiti ‘to finish.PFV’ ),  imperfective (e.g. raditi ‘to work.IPFV’), or biaspectual (e.g. reagovati ‘to react.BIASP’).  As shown below, the latter two categories were grouped together, as they behave similarly with respect to nominalizations.

Determining the presence of a genitive complement

Finally, the annotation included marking nominalizations which had a genitive complement (e.g. povećanje mesta ‘increase in capacity’), as opposed to those lacking a genitive complement (e.g. smirivanje na tom polju ‘calming down in that area’).

Adjustments

In the final annotation, nouns denoting agents were treated as referential and excluded from further analysis. Nouns with an unclear verbal base were marked in a dedicated column. For example, the noun prinos (‘contribution’) can derive either from prinositi (‘to bring repeatedly’) or prineti (‘to bring once’), making its verbal base ambiguous. Similarly, okršaj (‘clash’) could derive from different verb forms with overlapping meanings, complicating the identification of a single verbal base. These were therefore marked as unclear. 

Nouns such as saglasnost (‘consent’) and izlaznost (‘voter turnout’) were excluded from the analysis because they contain an intermediate adjectival base - saglasan (‘in agreement’) and izlazan (‘related to exit’), respectively - between the nominal and the verbal categorizers, which makes the derivational path less direct and unsuitable for the intended analysis.

Genitive compliments were annotated only when an argument was explicitly realized, omitted or implied arguments were not counted. The classification of verbal bases was based strictly on formal morphological criteria.

Column-by-column explanation

Column A (source URL) contains the link to the original sentence from the corpus.

Column B  (left_context) contains the part of the original sentence before očekivati ‘to expect’.

Column C (KWIC) contains the verb očekivati ‘to expect’ and the nominalization.

Column D (right_context) indicates the part of the sentence following očekivati ‘to expect’ and the noun.

Column E (nominalization) indicates the presence (indicated by a ‘1’) or absence (‘0’) of a deverbal nominalization. For example (2) is marked as ‘1’ since the complement of the verb očekivati ‘to expect’ is the deverbal nominalization dolazak ‘arrival’, while (3) is  marked as “0”, since the complement of the verb očekivati is the noun vesti ‘news’.   

(2)

 Organizatori    očekuju  dolazak             predstavnika      grčkih   organizacija u SAD.                                                             

 organizers       expect    arrival.ACC.SG   representatives Greek    organizations in USA                                                                                                                                       

 "The organizers expect the arrival of representatives of Greek organizations in the USA."

(3)

[...] u   trenutku   kada    je              ceo     svet    očekivao    vesti [...]                                                                                              

     in  moment   when   AUX.3SG   whole world expected    news 

“[...] at the moment when the whole world was expecting news [...]”

Column F (lemma) contains the nominalization in the citation form (nominative singular). For instance, the nominalisation in (4) was recorded as pobeda.

(4)

Mnogi su            očekivali  pobedu.  

many  AUX.3PL  expected  victory.ACC.SG 

"Many expected a victory."

Column G (nominalisation_pattern) contains the final suffix that the nominalization contains. More specifically, the following suffixes were marked: -nje (5), -nja (6), -ba  (7 ), -ak (8), -ka (9), -cija (10), -ica (11), -stvo (12) and  0 (13). The nominalisations that did not fit into one of these groups (14) got the marking “r” (rest/reminder) .

(5)

Građani očekuju povećanje.                                                                                                                 

citizen   expect   increase.ACC.SG                                                                              

“Citizens expect an increase.”

(6) 

U budućnosti očekujem saradnju.  

in future         I.expect     collaboration.ACC.SG                                                               

"I expect collaboration in the future."    

(7)  

Očekujem borbu               i     da         napokon zabeležimo    tri     boda.   

I.expect      fight.ACC.SG   and COMP  finally      we.record      three points

“I expect a fight and that we finally record three points.”          

(8)

[...] očekujemo      dolazak             mehanizacije  da          se     raščiste putevi.                                                                                                  

       we.expect       arrival.ACC.SG  machinery      COMP    REFL clear     road                                                                                                   

“[...] we are expecting the arrival of machinery to clear the roads.”

 

(9) 

Srbija  očekuje   podršku              u   razvoju          satelitskih sistema.                                                                 

Serbia expects   support.ACC.SG  in  development satellite    systems                                       

“Serbia expects support in the development of satellite systems.”

 (10) 

Očekujem  realizaciju                         nadležnih.   

I.expect      implementation.ACC.SG   authorities   

“I expect the implementation by the authorities.”                                                                                                                                                                         

 (11)  

 Očekujemo radionicu                za  decu       sa     princezom Anom.  

 we.expect   workshop.ACC.SG   for children with  princess    Ana 

 “We are expecting a workshop for children with Princess Ana.”                                                                                                                                    

 (12) 

Očekujemo prisustvo                   brojnih       eminentnih predavača. 

we.expect        presence.ACC.SG  numerous  eminent      lecturers  

“We expect the presence of numerous eminent lecturers.”                                                                                                                                                                                   

(13)

Nisam                   očekivala     pobedu.

NEG.AUX.1SG       expected     victory.ACC.SG

“I did not expect victory.”

(14) 

Organizatori očekuju učešće                          oko       60  ekipa.                                                         

organizers      expect   participation.ACC.SG  around  60  teams       

“The organizers expect participation from around 60 teams.”

Column H (related verb) contains the related verb in the citation form (infinitive), for pevanje ‘singning’ pevati ‘to sing’; for sadnja ‘planting’ saditi ‘to plant’; for borba ‘fight’ boriti se ‘to fight’ etc.

Column I (unclear_verbal_base) indicates the presence (‘1’) or  absence (‘0’)  of uncertainty about the base verb. For example, in (15) the base verb of otpor can be odupreti se or odupirati se ‘to resist’, so it was marked with ‘1’ in this column. In contrast, in (16) it is clear that the base verb of plovidba ‘voyage’ is ploviti ‘to sail’, so it was marked with ‘0’.

(15)

[...] da li očekuje  otpor                    od     zločinaca na severu odgovorio  je            sledeće. 

      Q     expects resistance.ACC.SG  from criminals on north   responded AUX.3SG following                                                                                                                                

“[...] whether he expects resistance from the criminals in the north, he responded with the following.” 

(16)

Sa    strahom je              očekivao  plovidbu.                                                                                  

with fear       AUX.3SG    expectes  voyage.ACC.SG                                                                                                                                                                                       

“He expected the voyage with fear.”

Column J (perfective_aspect) indicates whether the base verb is perfective, which is marked as ‘1’ (e.g. isporučiti ‘to deliver’) or imperfective, which is marked as ‘0’ (e.g. napadati ‘to attack’). Biaspecual verbs (e.g. reagovati ‘to react’) received the value ‘0’ just like imperfective verbs.

For instance, (17) is annotated as ‘1’, since the base verb of the nominalization pobeda ‘win’ is the perfective verb pobediti ‘to win’. However, (18) is annotated as ‘0’, since the base verb of the nominalization poštovanje ‘respect’ is the imperfective verb poštovati ‘to respect’. 

(17)

Očekujem pobedu          u    četvrtom meču.                                                                                  

I.expect      win.ACC.SG   in   fourth     match  

“I expect a win in the fourth match.”

(18)

Rekao  je              da   očekuje   poštovanje        prava.

said    AUX.3SG   that expects   respect.ACC.SG  right        

“He said that he expects respect for rights.”

Column K (nominalisation_plural) indicates whether the nominalization is in plural, which is marked as ‘1’, or singular, which is marked as “0”. For example, the nominalization rezultate ‘resulte’ in (19) is marked as ‘1’, because it is plural, while the nominalization suđenje ‘trial’ is singular and was marked with ‘0’.

(19)

Građani   očekuju   rezultate.

citizens   expect     result.ACC.PL

“Citizens expect results from them.” 

(20)

Uskoro očekujem suđenje.                                                                                                       

soon     I.expect      trial.ACC.SG

“I expect a trail soon.” 

Column L (genitive_complement) indicates the presence (‘1’) or absence (‘0’) of a postnominal genitive complement. For instance, (21) is marked as ‘1’ because the complement velikog broja takmičara ‘of a large number of competitors’ of the nominalization učešće ‘participation’ is in the genitive case. In contrast, (22) is annotated as ‘0’ because the complement na turniru ‘in a tournament’ of the nominalization plasman ‘placement’ is not in the genitive case.(21)

Očekujemo učešće                        velikog  broja      takmičara.                                                       

we.expect   participation.ACC.SG  big        number  competitors                                                                                   

“We expect participation of a large number of competitors.” 

(22)

Žestoko    su             se        pripremali     i      očekivali       plasman                na turniru.

intensely  AUX.3PL   REFL    prepared      and  expected      placement.ACC.SG on tournament

“They prepared intensely and were expecting placement in the tournament.”   



References

Ljubešić, N, Rupnik, P. and Kuzman, T. (2024). Serbian web corpus CLASSLA-web.sr 1.0, Slovenian language resource repository CLARIN.SI, ISSN 2820-4042, http://hdl.handle.net/11356/1931