Universal dependencies (UD) is a framework for morphosyntactic annotation of human language, which to date has been used to create treebanks for more than 100 languages. In this article, we outline the linguistic theory of the UD framework, which draws on a long tradition of typologically oriented grammatical theories. Grammatical relations between words are centrally used to explain how predicate–argument structures are encoded morphosyntactically in different languages while morphological features and part-of-speech classes give the properties of words. We argue that this theory is a good basis for cross-linguistically consistent annotation of typologically diverse languages in a way that supports computational natural language understanding as well as broader linguistic studies.

This article proposes a surface-syntactic annotation scheme called SUD that is near-isomorphic to the Universal Dependencies (UD) annotation scheme while following distributional criteria for defining the dependency tree structure and the naming of the syntactic functions. Rule-based graph transformation grammars allow for a bi-directional transformation of UD into SUD. The back-and-forth transformation can serve as an error-mining tool to assure the intralanguage and inter-language coherence of the UD treebanks.

The article examines the Universal Dependencies (UD) annotation scheme. The UD project is an international initiative to produce treebanks of the world's languages, whereby the treebanks have been annotated in a cross-linguistically consistent manner. A central aspect of the UD annotation scheme is its analysis of function words. The scheme advocates subordinating function words to content words. This article discusses linguistic and practical motivations behind the UD decision to subordinate function words to content words. It demonstrates that UD choices in this area are not supported linguistically. At the same time, the near convertibility of the UD treebanks to a more linguistically motivated annotation format means that the UD initiative remains of great value to linguistics in general.

This article attempts to place dependency annotation options on a solid theoretical and applied footing. By verifying the validity of some basic choices of the current dependency reference framework, Universal Dependencies (UD), in a perspective of general annotation principles, we show how some choices can lead to inconsistencies and discontinuities, partly due to UD's alternation between syntax and semantics. For some constructions, we propose better suited alternative structures with a clear-cut distinction of syntax and semantics. We propose a classification of conception-oriented, annotatororiented, and finally, treebank end-useroriented considerations to be used in the creation of new annotation schemes.

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