[bnc] BNC User Manual

Miscellaneous code tables

This section consists of a series of tables identifying a number of codes used in various aspects of the corpus and its encoding.

The following code tables are provided:

Elements defined by the BNC DTD lists all SGML elements used in the corpus, with a brief description of each
Character entities defined by the BNC DTD lists all SGML entities used in the corpus, with a brief description of each
Division types lists all values actually used in the corpus for the type attribute on division elements (<div1>, <div2> etc.)
Rendition codes lists all values used in the corpus for the r (rendition) attribute, chiefly on <hi> elements, to indicate typographic rendering of the source
Voice quality codes lists all values used in the corpus for the new attribute on the <shift> element, to indicate changes in voice quality for spoken texts
Regional codes lists the codes used to identify regional origins of participants, as specified in the <person> element in the header
Relationship codes lists the codes used to identify relationships documented between participants, as specified in the <relation> element in the header
Word class codes lists all part of speech codes in the C5 tagset, used to specify the linguistic category for all <w> and <c> elements

In addition, a list of ‘non-orthographic words’ recognized by the CLAWS system (i.e. multiword items and clitics) which was included in this section in the first edition of this document is now available in the accompanying Manual to accompany The British National Corpus (Version 2) with Improved Word-class Tagging by Geoffrey Leech and Nicholas Smith.

The list of text classification codes present in the first edition of this document is now included only as part of the presentation of the corpus header in section ??.

Elements defined by the BNC DTD

The following list gives a brief description of each element defined in the BNC document type definition (DTD). Elements are listed in alphabetical order. Descriptions prefixed by ‘(H)’ are for elements which appear only in the text headers. Counts are given for elements occurring within texts.

<activity>: (H) participants' activity during recording
<address>: (H) postal or other address
<align>: alignment map for synchronizing overlap points (3461)
<analytic>: (H) analytic bibliographic entry
<author>: (H) author in bibliographic entry
<avail>: (H) availability code for file
<bibl>: loosely structured bibliographic reference (1037)
<biblScope>: (H) page range within bibliographic entry
<biblStruct>: (H) structured bibliographic entry
<bnc>: the BNC itself
<bncDoc>: an individual text in the BNC
<body>: the body of a written text in the BNC (3136)
<c>: a punctuation mark (13620069)
<caption>: a floating heading or caption (89935)
<catDesc>: (H) description of a category
<category>: (H) a category-value pair
<catRef>: (H) category codes applicable to a text
<change>: (H) change note
<classDecl>: (H) description of classification scheme
<corr>: editorial correction (8323)
<creation>: (H) information about creation of a text
<date>: (H) a date
<classCode>: (H) externally-defined classification code for a text
<div>: any subdivision of a spoken text (3779)
<div1>: first-level subdivision of a written text (84777)
<div2>: second-level subdivision of a written text (72697)
<div3>: third-level subdivision of a written text (38122)
<div4>: fourth-level subdivision of a written text (12506)
<editorialDecl>: (H) descriptions of editorial policies
<edition>: (H) edition in a bibliographic entry
<editionStmt>: (H) information about a particular edition
<encodingDesc>: (H) encoding description
<event>: non-verbal event within a spoken text (6565)
<extent>: (H) size of a corpus text
<fileDesc>: (H) documentation of an electronic text
<gap>: a spot where part of source text has been omitted (95959)
<head>: any form of heading or title (222876)
<hi>: typographically highlighted phrase (210927)
<idno>: (H) identifying number for a text
<imprint>: (H) imprint within a bibliographic entry
<item>: item within a list (117207)
<keyWords>: (H) descriptive keywords for topics of a text
<l>: line of verse (51559)
<label>: label of a list item (65664)
<langUsage>: (H) description of languages used in a text
<lb>: line break in printed source (169)
<lg>: group of verse lines (1)
<list>: list of items (19758)
<loc>: synchronisation point within an alignment map (244975)
<locale>: (H) description of a place where speech recorded
<monogr>: (H) monographic bibliographic entry
<name>: (H) name of place where speech recorded
<note>: note or comment of any kind (17206)
<p>: paragraph in written text (1515002)
<particDesc>: (H) description of spoken text participants
<pause>: noticeable pause in spoken text (217916)
<pb>: page break in written text (153642)
<person>: (H) information about a speaker
<poem>: group of verse lines in a written text (3048)
<profileDesc>: (H) additional information about a text
<projectDesc>: (H) background information about BNC project
<ptr>: link to a displaced element or to synchronisation point (578248)
<publicationStmt>: (H) publication or distribution information
<pubPlace>: (H) place of publication within bibliographic entry
<quote>: quotation from some other work (15221)
<recording>: (H) information about a single recording
<recordingStmt>: (H) information about the recordings from which a transcript was made
<refsDecl>: (H) description of reference system used
<reg>: an editorial regularization (8363)
<relation>: (H) relationship between participants in a spoken text
<resp>: (H) nature of responsibility
<respStmt>: (H) statement of responsibility in a bibliographic entry
<revisionDesc>: (H) revision description
<s>: sentence-like linguistic segment (6053093)
<salute>: salutation or greeting (444)
<samplingDecl>: (H) description of sampling policy
<settingDesc>: (H) description of the settings in which speech occurs
<setting>: (H) an individual setting in which speech occurs
<shift>: change in voice quality (36216)
<sic>: apparently erroneous transcription (7797)
<sp>: speech in a written text (29858)
<spkr>: speaker of a speech in a written text (23708)
<sourceDesc>: (H) description of the source for a text
<stage>: stage direction in a written text (508)
<stext>: an individual spoken text (918)
<tagsDecl>: (H) list of tags used in a particular text
<tagUsage>: (H) count for a particular tag in a text
<teiHeader>: meta-information describing a corpus text
<term>: (H) individual term in a list of keywords
<text>: an individual written text (3136)
<title>: (H) title within a bibliographic entry
<titleStmt>: (H) title statement for a text
<trans>: (H) declaration of transcription policy
<trunc>: truncated form in a spoken text (52724)
<textClass>: (H) text classification
<u>: utterance in a spoken text (775799)
<unclear>: inaudible or incomprehensible passage in a spoken text (204239)
<vocal>: non-verbal vocalization in a spoken text (44286)
<w>: POS-tagged lexical item (97619934)

Character entities defined by the BNC DTD

The following list gives a brief description of each character entity used within the text of the BNC. Declarations for these entities may be found either in standard entity sets or from the entity definitions supplied as part of the BNC document type definition, in the file BNCents.dtd. In either case, system specific values should be supplied for the characters described below. The number in parentheses indicates the number of times this entity reference appears in the current version of the corpus.

Table 1. Character entities used in the BNC
entity	description	count
Aacute	capital A, acute accent	51
aacute	small a, acute accent	2145
abreve	small A, breve	4
Acirc	capital A, circumflex accent	8
acirc	small a, circumflex accent	772
acute	acute accent	3
AElig	capital AE diphthong (ligature)	324
aelig	small ae diphthong (ligature)	232
agr	small alpha, Greek	1237
Agrave	capital A, grave accent	43
agrave	small a, grave accent	878
Amacr	capital A, macron	20
amacr	small a, macron	581
amp	ampersand	18931
aogon	small a, ogonek	2
ape	approximate, equals	5
Aring	capital A, ring	141
aring	small a, ring	65
ast	asterisk	919
atilde	small a, tilde	244
Auml	capital A, dieresis or umlaut mark	6
auml	small a, dieresis or umlaut mark	967
Bgr	capital Beta, Greek	186
bgr	small beta, Greek	1122
bquo	normalized begin quote mark	771009
bsol	reverse solidus	226
bull	round bullet, filled	2150
cacute	small c, acute accent	186
Ccaron	capital C, caron	31
ccaron	small c, caron	143
Ccedil	capital C, cedilla	17
ccedil	small c, cedilla	1320
ccirc	small c, circumflex accent	2
cent	cent sign	3
check	tick, check mark	13
cir	circle, open	21
circ	circumflex accent	100
commat	commercial at	189
copy	copyright sign	65
darr	downward arrow	17
dash	hyphen (true graphic)	1
dcaron	small d, caron	1
deg	degree sign	4067
Dgr	capital Delta, Greek	251
dgr	small delta, Greek	151
die	dieresis	13
divide	divide sign	58
dollar	dollar sign	24552
dstrok	small d, stroke	18
dtrif	dn tri, filled	2
Eacute	capital E, acute accent	269
eacute	small e, acute accent	16078
Ecaron	capital E, caron	2
ecaron	small e, caron	67
Ecirc	capital E, circumflex accent	2
ecirc	small e, circumflex accent	718
eegr	small eta, Greek	48
Egr	capital Epsilon, Greek	170
egr	small epsilon, Greek	207
Egrave	capital E, grave accent	14
egrave	small e, grave accent	2577
emacr	small e, macron	4
eogon	small e, ogonek	6
equals	equals sign	3
equo	normalized end quote mark	752621
eth	small eth, Icelandic	4
Euml	capital E, dieresis or umlaut mark	15
euml	small e, dieresis or umlaut mark	482
flat	musical flat	154
formula	mathematical formula	6466
frac12	fraction one-half	2795
frac13	fraction one-third	68
frac14	fraction one-quarter	575
frac15	fraction one-fifth	20
frac16	fraction one-sixth	6
frac17	fraction one-seventh	2
frac18	fraction one-eighth	60
frac19	fraction one-ninth	1
frac23	fraction two-thirds	50
frac25	fraction two-fifths	9
frac34	fraction three-quarters	325
frac35	fraction three-fifths	5
frac38	fraction three-eighths	52
frac45	fraction four-fifths	5
frac47	fraction four-sevenths	1
frac56	fraction five-sixths	1
frac58	fraction five-eighths	33
frac78	fraction seven-eighths	7
ft	feet indicator	630
ge	greater-than-or-equal	18
Ggr	capital Gamma, Greek	33
ggr	small gamma, Greek	499
grave	grave accent	2
Gt	dbl greater-than sign	8
gt	greater-than sign	1102
half	fraction one-half	74
hearts	heart suit symbol	1
hellip	ellipsis (horizontal)	77286
horbar	horizontal bar	2
hstrok	small h, stroke	2
Iacute	capital I, acute accent	3
iacute	small i, acute accent	1278
Icirc	capital I, circumflex accent	21
icirc	small i, circumflex accent	225
iexcl	inverted exclamation mark	21
igr	small iota, Greek	2
igrave	small i, grave accent	39
imacr	small i, macron	10
infin	infinity	15
ins	inches indicator	2306
iquest	inverted question mark	11
Iuml	capital I, dieresis or umlaut mark	1
iuml	small i, dieresis or umlaut mark	507
kgr	small kappa, Greek	29
khgr	small chi, Greek	300
Lacute	capital L, acute accent	2
lacute	small l, acute accent	2
larr	leftward arrow	1
lcub	left curly bracket	345
le	less-than-or-equal	23
lgr	small lambda, Greek	104
lowbar	low line	134
lsqb	left square bracket	34752
Lstrok	capital L, stroke	3
lstrok	small l, stroke	25
Lt	double less-than sign	3
lt	less-than sign	2295
mdash	em dash	275695
Mgr	capital Mu, Greek	1
mgr	small mu, Greek	376
micro	micro sign	1487
middot	middle dot	253
nacute	small n, acute accent	21
natur	music natural	6
ncaron	small n, caron	27
ncedil	small n, cedilla	2
ndash	en dash	43489
ngr	small nu, Greek	88
Ntilde	capital N, tilde	4
ntilde	small n, tilde	771
num	number sign	138
Oacute	capital O, acute accent	17
oacute	small o, acute accent	1328
Ocirc	capital O, circumflex accent	7
ocirc	small o, circumflex accent	754
OElig	capital OE ligature	2
oelig	small oe ligature	55
Ogr	capital Omicron, Greek	11
ogr	small omicron, Greek	52
ograve	small o, grave accent	73
OHgr	capital Omega, Greek	1
ohgr	small omega, Greek	23
ohm	ohm sign	15
omacr	small o, macron	4
Oslash	capital O, slash	16
oslash	small o, slash	304
Otilde	capital O, tilde	1
otilde	small o, tilde	4
Ouml	capital O, dieresis or umlaut mark	344
ouml	small o, dieresis or umlaut mark	1284
percnt	percent sign	144
Pgr	capital Pi, Greek	37
pgr	small pi, Greek	95
PHgr	capital Phi, Greek	9
phgr	small phi, Greek	107
plus	plus sign	198
plusmn	plus-or-minus sign	122
pound	pound sign	71698
Prime	double prime or second	59
prime	prime or minute	128
PSgr	capital Psi, Greek	15
psgr	small psi, Greek	16
quot	quotation mark	142126
racute	small r, acute accent	3
radic	surd =radical (square root)	9
rarr	rightward arrow	182
Rcaron	capital R, caron	1
rcaron	small r, caron	103
rcub	right curly bracket	343
reg	registered sign	11
rehy	maps to soft hyphen	3905
rgr	small rho, Greek	81
rsqb	right square bracket	34807
Sacute	capital S, acute accent	13
sacute	small s, acute accent	24
Scaron	capital S, caron	85
scaron	small s, caron	257
Scedil	capital S, cedilla	7
scedil	small s, cedilla	465
scirc	small s, circumflex accent	14
sect	section sign	52
Sgr	capital Sigma, Greek	13
sgr	small sigma, Greek	150
sharp	musical sharp	93
shilling	British shilling	228
sim	similar	68
sol	solidus	355
sup1	superscript one	2
sup2	superscript two	45
sup3	superscript three	10
szlig	small sharp s, German (sz ligature)	19
tcaron	small t, caron	1
tcedil	small t, cedilla	26
tgr	small tau, Greek	68
THgr	capital Theta, Greek	13
thgr	small theta, Greek	193
THORN	capital THORN, Icelandic	15
thorn	small thorn, Icelandic	13
times	multiply sign	2300
trade	trade mark sign	12
Uacute	capital U, acute accent	7
uacute	small u, acute accent	326
Ucirc	capital U, circumflex accent	1
ucirc	small u, circumflex accent	107
Ugr	capital Upsilon, Greek	1
ugr	small upsilon, Greek	3
ugrave	small u, grave accent	38
umacr	small u, macron	3
uml	umlaut mark	3
uring	small u, ring	9
Uuml	capital U, dieresis or umlaut mark	25
uuml	small u, dieresis or umlaut mark	2246
verbar	vertical bar	269
wcirc	small w, circumflex accent	2
xgr	small xi, Greek	8
yacute	small y, acute accent	138
Ycirc	capital Y, circumflex accent	1
ycirc	small y, circumflex accent	6
yen	yen sign	120
Yuml	capital Y, dieresis or umlaut mark	2
yuml	small y, dieresis or umlaut mark	47
zacute	small z, acute accent	3
Zcaron	capital Z, caron	9
zcaron	small z, caron	67
zdot	small z, dot above	1
Zgr	capital Zeta, Greek	3
zgr	small zeta, Greek	33

Division types

The type attribute on each <div1>, <div2> (etc) element of a written text may be used to supply a value which characterizes the function of the corresponding subdivision in some way. The following table lists the values used and their frequencies in the current version of the Corpus:

Table 2. Division types
advertisement (6)	appendix (1)	article (2)
blurb (1)	body text (3)	brochure (1)
cartoon (2)	chapter (1018)	column (162)
commentary (1)	competition (1)	compo (11)
contents (2)	element (1)	fact sheet (1)
front (115)	headlines (2)	insert (2)
introduction (1)	item (12)	leaflet (7)
magazine (1)	paper (11)	paragraph (1)
part (85)	poster (1)	recipe (61)
section (59)	short story (8)	sidebar (4)
story (178)	strip cartoon (1)	sub (2)
subsection (109)	title page (1)	title page obverse (1)
toc (1)	u (209985)

Rendition codes

The following codes are used to indicate the kind of typographic rendition associated with an element which is typographically distinct in some way. These codes are mostly used as values for the rend attribute of the <hi> element, but may be used on any element bearing this attribute.

bo: bold face
bx: boxed
it: italic font
ro: roman font
hi: superscript
lo: subscript
qr: right aligned
qc: centred
qt: quoted
sc: small caps
st: struck out
ul: underlined

More than one value from the above list may occasionally be specified for a single element. In this case, the values are separated by spaces.

Voice quality codes

Changes in voice quality in spoken texts are indicated by values for the <new> attribute on a <shift> element, at the point where the speaker's voice change. The following list summarises the values used in the present version of the corpus:

cheering
crying
eating
giggling
humming
humming the stripper's song
imitates woman's voice
imitating a monkey
imitating a sexy woman's voice
imitating Chinese voice
imitating drunken voice
imitating Italian accent
imitating man's voice
imitating posh voice
imitating woman's voice
in a boyish voice
in the distance
laughing
laughing+reading
laughing+shouting
mimicking
mimicking American accent
mimicking American accent from Wayne's World
mimicking an upper class person
mimicking baby voice
mimicking Birmingham accent
mimicking Chinese speaking
mimicking Cilla Black's accent
mimicking crying
mimicking deep voice
mimicking Donald Duck
mimicking finance lady
mimicking Geordie accent
mimicking German accent
mimicking girlie voice
mimicking Henry Cooper
mimicking Jamaican accent
mimicking Manchester accent
mimicking mentally handicapped
mimicking northern accent
mimicking Pakistani accent
mimicking refined accent
mimicking Scottish accent
mimicking stupid man's voice
mimicking Swedish accent
mimicking telephone voice
mimicking the German accent
mimicking whining
mimicking witch
mimicking Yorkshire accent
mimicking+screaming
moaning
mumbling
muttering
on telephone
praying
quoting
raising voice
rapping
reading
reading+laughing
reading+shouting
reading+whispering
screaming
shouting
shouting+laughing
shouting+spelling
sighing
singing
singing+laughing
singing+mimicking
singing+shouting
singing+whispering
singing+yawning
speaking as if mentally handicapped
speaking dramatically
speaking with mouth full
spelling
talking with mouth full
whingeing
whining
whispering
whispering+laughing
yawning
yawning+reading

Regional codes

The codes used to mark places of origin, regions, and dialects in the TEI Header are all derived from the same set of ISO 3-letter codes. The codes used are listed here:

CAN: Canada
CHN: China
DEU: Germany
FRA: France
GBR: United Kingdom
IND: India
IRL: Ireland
USA: United States
XXX: Unknown
ZZG: Europe
XDE: accent: German
XEA: accent: East Anglia
XFR: accent: French
XHC: accent: Home Counties
XHM: accent: Humberside
XIR: accent: Irish
XIS: accent: Indian subcontinent
XLC: accent: Lancashire
XLO: accent: London
XMC: accent: central Midlands
XMD: accent: Merseyside
XME: accent: north-east Midlands
XMI: accent: Midlands
XMS: accent: south Midlands
XMW: accent: north-west Midlands
XNC: accent: central northern England
XNE: accent: north-east England
XNO: accent: northern England
XOT: accent: other or unidentifiable
XSD: accent: Scottish
XSL: accent: lower south-west England
XSS: accent: central south-west England
XSU: accent: upper south-west England
XUR: accent: European
XUS: accent: U.S.A.
XWA: accent: Welsh
XWE: accent: West Indian

Relationship codes

Where relationships between individual participants in spoken texts can be identified, they will be specified by means of the <relation> element within the text header (as discussed in section ??). The type attribute of this element may take any of the values listed below. The number in parentheses indicates the number of times this value appears in the current version of the corpus.

acquaint: acquaintance (6)
audience: (4)
aunt: (8)
aunt-i-l: aunt-in-law (1)
b-friend: boyfriend (5)
b-i-l: brother-in-law (13)
b-sitter: baby sitter (2)
brother: (53)
chairman: (8)
child: (2)
church-m: church member (1)
cl-m-i-l: common law mother-in-law (1)
client: (1)
colleagu: colleague (123)
cous-i-l: cousin-in-law (1)
cousin: (7)
customer: (3)
d-i-l: daughter-in-law (11)
daughter: (84)
doctor: (77)
employee: (4)
employer: (9)
f-i-l: father-in-law (16)
father: (73)
fiance: (1)
fiancee: (2)
friend: (123)
g-aunt: great-aunt (1)
g-daught: granddaughter (15)
g-fath: grand-father (11)
g-friend: girlfriend (5)
g-moth: grandmother (21)
g-niece: great-niece (1)
g-son: grandson (17)
gg-daugh: great-granddaughter (1)
gg-moth: great-grandmother (1)
hairdres: hairdresser (1)
host: (1)
housekee: housekeeper (1)
husband: (103)
intervee: interviewee (42)
lecturer: (4)
m-i-l: mother-in-law (21)
mother: (117)
neighbou: neighbour (13)
neph-i-l: nephew-in-law (1)
nephew: (7)
niece: (9)
parent: (5)
patient: (76)
s-daught: step-daughter (1)
s-father: step-father (1)
secretar: secretary (3)
server: (2)
sib-i-l: sibling-in-law (1)
sibling: (1)
sis-i-l: sister-in-law (12)
sister: (48)
son: (71)
son-i-l: son-in-law (18)
speaker: (9)
stranger: (13)
student: (31)
teacher: (26)
trainee: (1)
trainer: (2)
tutor: (4)
uncle: (6)
visitor: (2)
wife: (104)

Text and genre classification codes

Texts are classified in several different ways in the BNC, as described in section ??. Each text carries a number of text classification codes, specified a string of values on the target attribute of its <catRefs> element. Possible values for these codes and their significance are listed in the corpus header (see ??). These values are also used in the BNC indexing files described in section ?? and distribution tables showing the number of texts, words, and sentences classified under most of them are given above in section ??.

One of the codes listed below is also supplied for each text as the content of a <classCode> element in its text header, as an alternative way of characterising each text. Full details of the analysis scheme used and its rationale are provided in an article by David Lee (Genres, registers, text types and styles: clarifying the concepts and navigating a path through the BNC Jungle, to be published in Language Learning and Technology, vol 5 no 3, September 2001) who has also generously agreed to make some of the results of this work available with the current release of the BNC.

Table 3. Genre classification for spoken texts
`code`	texts
`S_brdcast_discussn`	54
`S_brdcast_documentary`	10
`S_brdcast_news`	12
`S_classroom`	59
`S_consult`	128
`S_conv`	153
`S_courtroom`	13
`S_demonstratn`	6
`S_interview`	13
`S_interview_oral_history`	119
`S_lect_commerce`	3
`S_lect_humanities_arts`	4
`S_lect_nat_science`	4
`S_lect_polit_law_edu`	7
`S_lect_soc_science`	13
`S_meeting`	132
`S_parliament`	6
`S_pub_debate`	16
`S_sermon`	16
`S_speech_scripted`	26
`S_speech_unscripted`	51
`S_sportslive`	4
`S_tutorial`	18
`S_unclassified`	44

Table 4. Genre classification for written texts
`code`	texts
`W_ac_humanities_arts`	87
`W_ac_medicine`	24
`W_ac_nat_science`	43
`W_ac_polit_law_edu`	187
`W_ac_soc_science`	142
`W_ac_tech_engin`	23
`W_admin`	12
`W_advert`	60
`W_biography`	100
`W_commerce`	112
`W_email`	7
`W_essay_school`	7
`W_essay_univ`	4
`W_fict_drama`	2
`W_fict_poetry`	31
`W_fict_prose`	485
`W_hansard`	4
`W_institut_doc`	43
`W_instructional`	15
`W_letters_personal`	6
`W_letters_prof`	11
`W_misc`	501
`W_news_script`	32
`W_newsp_brdsht_nat_arts`	51
`W_newsp_brdsht_nat_commerce`	44
`W_newsp_brdsht_nat_editorial`	12
`W_newsp_brdsht_nat_misc`	95
`W_newsp_brdsht_nat_report`	49
`W_newsp_brdsht_nat_science`	29
`W_newsp_brdsht_nat_social`	36
`W_newsp_brdsht_nat_sports`	24
`W_newsp_other_arts`	15
`W_newsp_other_commerce`	17
`W_newsp_other_report`	27
`W_newsp_other_reportage`	12
`W_newsp_other_science`	23
`W_newsp_other_social`	37
`W_newsp_other_sports`	9
`W_newsp_tabloid`	6
`W_non_ac_humanities_arts`	116
`W_non_ac_medicine`	17
`W_non_ac_nat_science`	62
`W_non_ac_polit_law_edu`	93
`W_non_ac_soc_science`	128
`W_non_ac_tech_engin`	123
`W_pop_lore`	211
`W_religion`	35

Word class codes

A full discussion of the principles and practice underlying the CLAWS word class annotation scheme used in the BNC is provided by the document Manual to accompany The British National Corpus (Version 2) with Improved Word-class Tagging, which is distributed with the BNC World Edition in HTML format.

For convenience, a brief list of the codes used by this scheme extracted from that manual is also provided here.

Tag	Description
`AJ0`	Adjective (general or positive) (e.g. good, old, beautiful)
`AJC`	Comparative adjective (e.g. better, older)
`AJS`	Superlative adjective (e.g. best, oldest)
`AT0`	Article (e.g. the, a, an, no)
`AV0`	General adverb: an adverb not subclassified as AVP or AVQ (see below) (e.g. often, well, longer (adv.), furthest.
`AVP`	Adverb particle (e.g. up, off, out)
`AVQ`	Wh-adverb (e.g. when, where, how, why, wherever)
`CJC`	Coordinating conjunction (e.g. and, or, but)
`CJS`	Subordinating conjunction (e.g. although, when)
`CJT`	The subordinating conjunction that
`CRD`	Cardinal number (e.g. one, 3, fifty-five, 3609)
`DPS`	Possessive determiner-pronoun (e.g. your, their, his)
`DT0`	General determiner-pronoun: i.e. a determiner-pronoun which is not a DTQ or an AT0.
`DTQ`	Wh-determiner-pronoun (e.g. which, what, whose, whichever)
`EX0`	Existential there, i.e. there occurring in the there is ... or there are ... construction
`ITJ`	Interjection or other isolate (e.g. oh, yes, mhm, wow)
`NN0`	Common noun, neutral for number (e.g. aircraft, data, committee)
`NN1`	Singular common noun (e.g. pencil, goose, time, revelation)
`NN2`	Plural common noun (e.g. pencils, geese, times, revelations)
`NP0`	Proper noun (e.g. London, Michael, Mars, IBM)
`ORD`	Ordinal numeral (e.g. first, sixth, 77th, last) .
`PNI`	Indefinite pronoun (e.g. none, everything, one [as pronoun], nobody)
`PNP`	Personal pronoun (e.g. I, you, them, ours)
`PNQ`	Wh-pronoun (e.g. who, whoever, whom)
`PNX`	Reflexive pronoun (e.g. myself, yourself, itself, ourselves)
`POS`	The possessive or genitive marker 's or '
`PRF`	The preposition of
`PRP`	Preposition (except for of) (e.g. about, at, in, on, on behalf of, with)
`PUL`	Punctuation: left bracket - i.e. ( or [
`PUN`	Punctuation: general separating mark - i.e. . , ! , : ; - or ?
`PUQ`	Punctuation: quotation mark - i.e. ' or "
`PUR`	Punctuation: right bracket - i.e. ) or ]
`TO0`	Infinitive marker to
`UNC`	Unclassified items which are not appropriately considered as items of the English lexicon.
`VBB`	The present tense forms of the verb BE, except for is, 's: i.e. am, are, 'm, 're and be [subjunctive or imperative]
`VBD`	The past tense forms of the verb BE: was and were
`VBG`	The -ing form of the verb BE: being
`VBI`	The infinitive form of the verb BE: be
`VBN`	The past participle form of the verb BE: been
`VBZ`	The -s form of the verb BE: is, 's
`VDB`	The finite base form of the verb BE: do
`VDD`	The past tense form of the verb DO: did
`VDG`	The -ing form of the verb DO: doing
`VDI`	The infinitive form of the verb DO: do
`VDN`	The past participle form of the verb DO: done
`VDZ`	The -s form of the verb DO: does, 's
`VHB`	The finite base form of the verb HAVE: have, 've
`VHD`	The past tense form of the verb HAVE: had, 'd
`VHG`	The -ing form of the verb HAVE: having
`VHI`	The infinitive form of the verb HAVE: have
`VHN`	The past participle form of the verb HAVE: had
`VHZ`	The -s form of the verb HAVE: has, 's
`VM0`	Modal auxiliary verb (e.g. will, would, can, could, 'll, 'd)
`VVB`	The finite base form of lexical verbs (e.g. forget, send, live, return) [Including the imperative and present subjunctive]
`VVD`	The past tense form of lexical verbs (e.g. forgot, sent, lived, returned)
`VVG`	The -ing form of lexical verbs (e.g. forgetting, sending, living, returning)
`VVI`	The infinitive form of lexical verbs (e.g. forget, send, live, return)
`VVN`	The past participle form of lexical verbs (e.g. forgotten, sent, lived, returned)
`VVZ`	The -s form of lexical verbs (e.g. forgets, sends, lives, returns)
`XX0`	The negative particle not or n't
`ZZ0`	Alphabetical symbols (e.g. A, a, B, b, c, d)

In addition to the basic 57 codes tabulated above, the BNC World Edition uses thirty ‘portmanteau’ or ‘ambiguity’ tags. These are applied wherever the probabilities assigned by the CLAWS automatic tagger to its first and second choice tags were considered too low for reliable disambiguation. So, for example, the ambiguity tag AJ0-AV0 indicates that the choice between adjective (AJ0) and adverb (AV0) is left open, although the tagger has a preference for an adjective reading. The mirror tag, AV0-AJ0, again shows adjective-adverb ambiguity, but this time the more likely reading is the adverb.

The following table lists the ambiguity codes used in BNC World:

Ambiguity tag	Ambiguous between	More probable tag
`AJ0-NN1`	AJ0 or NN1	AJ0
`AJ0-VVD`	AJ0 or VVD	AJ0
`AJ0-VVG`	AJ0 or VVG	AJ0
`AJ0-VVN`	AJ0 or VVN	AJ0
`AV0-AJ0`	AV0 or AJ0	AV0
`AVP-PRP`	AVP or PRP	AVP
`AVQ-CJS`	AVQ or CJS	AVQ
`CJS-AVQ`	CJS or AVQ	CJS
`CJS-PRP`	CJS or PRP	CJS
`CJT-DT0`	CJT or DT0	CJT
`CRD-PNI`	CRD or PNI	CRD
`DT0-CJT`	DT0 or CJT	DT0
`NN1-AJ0`	NN1 or AJ0	NN1
`NN1-NP0`	NN1 or NP0	NN1
`NN1-VVB`	NN1 or VVB	NN1
`NN1-VVG`	NN1 or VVG	NN1
`NN2-VVZ`	NN2 or VVZ	NN2
`NP0-NN1`	NP0 or NN1	NP0
`PNI-CRD`	PNI or CRD	PNI
`PRP-AVP`	PRP or AVP	PRP
`PRP-CJS`	PRP or CJS	PRP
`VVB-NN1`	VVB or NN1	VVB
`VVD-AJ0`	VVD or AJ0	VVD
`VVD-VVN`	VVD or VVN	VVD
`VVG-AJ0`	VVG or AJ0	VVG
`VVG-NN1`	VVG or NN1	VVG
`VVN-AJ0`	VVN or AJ0	VVN
`VVN-VVD`	VVN or VVD	VVN
`VVZ-NN2`	VVZ or NN2	VVZ

Up: Contents