Building tree annotation with a spreadsheet

A spreadsheet consists of a table of cells arranged into columns and rows. The columns are normally represented by letters, “A”, “B”, “C”, etc., while the rows are normally represented by numbers, “1”, “2”, “3”, etc. A single cell can be referenced by its column and row. For example, A5 represents the cell containing the value jumps in table (2) below.

    Additionally, spreadsheets have the concept of a range as a grouping of cells. For example, the first ten cells in the first column of (2) form the range “A1:A10”, which is filled with the words of the example sentence (1). Note that each consecutive word fills a single cell of a distinct consecutive row. Also, note that punctuation is treated like a word. Finally, there is cell A11 to tell us that cell B11 contains an ID for the sentence.

(1)

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

(2)

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G
1	The
2	quick
3	brown
4	fox
5	jumps
6	over
7	the
8	lazy
9	dog
10	.
11	ID	example
12

    We need to add word class tag information to the words of (2). We first insert cells to the left of A1:A10, so that the contents of A1:A10 become B1:B10, and A1:A10 become empty cells, as in (3). There is now room for adding word class tags.

(3)

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G
1		The
2		quick
3		brown
4		fox
5		jumps
6		over
7		the
8		lazy
9		dog
10		.
11	ID	example
12

    We add word class tags to the cells of A1:A10, resulting in (4).

(4)

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G
1	D	The
2	ADJ	quick
3	ADJ	brown
4	N	fox
5	VBP;~Ipr	jumps
6	P-ROLE	over
7	D	the
8	ADJ	lazy
9	N	dog
10	PUNC	.
11	ID	example
12

    Now that every word has a word class tag, we can start creating phrase structure. In particular, let's start by adding ADJP structures. This requires that we first insert cells to the left of the ADJ word tags, resulting in (5).

(5)

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G
1	D	The
2		ADJ	quick
3		ADJ	brown
4	N	fox
5	VBP;~Ipr	jumps
6	P-ROLE	over
7	D	the
8		ADJ	lazy
9	N	dog
10	PUNC	.
11	ID	example
12

    We can now fill the empty cells created in (5) with the ADJP tag, resulting in (6). Note that the second instance of ADJP is given an index (“;@2“). This is because two ADJP instances are occurring consecutively that need to be distinct. Aside from ensuring distinctness, the chosen numbering is not important.

(6)

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G
1	D	The
2	ADJP	ADJ	quick
3	ADJP;@2	ADJ	brown
4	N	fox
5	VBP;~Ipr	jumps
6	P-ROLE	over
7	D	the
8	ADJP	ADJ	lazy
9	N	dog
10	PUNC	.
11	ID	example
12

    We next insert cell structure for a subject noun phrase, resulting in (7).

(7)

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G
1		D	The
2		ADJP	ADJ	quick
3		ADJP;@2	ADJ	brown
4		N	fox
5	VBP;~Ipr	jumps
6	P-ROLE	over
7	D	the
8	ADJP	ADJ	lazy
9	N	dog
10	PUNC	.
11	ID	example
12

    We next fill the subject noun phrase cell structure created in (7) with the NP-SBJ tag, resulting in (8). There is no indexing with NP-SBJ because all consecutive instances of NP-SBJ (A1:A4) belong to the same phrase.

(8)

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G
1	NP-SBJ	D	The
2	NP-SBJ	ADJP	ADJ	quick
3	NP-SBJ	ADJP;@2	ADJ	brown
4	NP-SBJ	N	fox
5	VBP;~Ipr	jumps
6	P-ROLE	over
7	D	the
8	ADJP	ADJ	lazy
9	N	dog
10	PUNC	.
11	ID	example
12

    We next insert cell structure for a second noun phrase, resulting in (9).

(9)

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G
1	NP-SBJ	D	The
2	NP-SBJ	ADJP	ADJ	quick
3	NP-SBJ	ADJP;@2	ADJ	brown
4	NP-SBJ	N	fox
5	VBP;~Ipr	jumps
6	P-ROLE	over
7		D	the
8		ADJP	ADJ	lazy
9		N	dog
10	PUNC	.
11	ID	example
12

    We next fill the noun phrase cell structure created in (9) with the NP tag, resulting in (10).

(10)

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G
1	NP-SBJ	D	The
2	NP-SBJ	ADJP	ADJ	quick
3	NP-SBJ	ADJP;@2	ADJ	brown
4	NP-SBJ	N	fox
5	VBP;~Ipr	jumps
6	P-ROLE	over
7	NP	D	the
8	NP	ADJP	ADJ	lazy
9	NP	N	dog
10	PUNC	.
11	ID	example
12

    We next insert cell structure for a preposition phrase, resulting in (11).

(11)

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G
1	NP-SBJ	D	The
2	NP-SBJ	ADJP	ADJ	quick
3	NP-SBJ	ADJP;@2	ADJ	brown
4	NP-SBJ	N	fox
5	VBP;~Ipr	jumps
6		P-ROLE	over
7		NP	D	the
8		NP	ADJP	ADJ	lazy
9		NP	N	dog
10	PUNC	.
11	ID	example
12

    We next fill the preposition phrase cell structure created in (11) with the PP-CLR-DIR tag, resulting in (12).

(12)

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G
1	NP-SBJ	D	The
2	NP-SBJ	ADJP	ADJ	quick
3	NP-SBJ	ADJP;@2	ADJ	brown
4	NP-SBJ	N	fox
5	VBP;~Ipr	jumps
6	PP-CLR-DIR	P-ROLE	over
7	PP-CLR-DIR	NP	D	the
8	PP-CLR-DIR	NP	ADJP	ADJ	lazy
9	PP-CLR-DIR	NP	N	dog
10	PUNC	.
11	ID	example
12

    We next insert cell structure for a matrix clause, resulting in (13).

(13)

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G
1		NP-SBJ	D	The
2		NP-SBJ	ADJP	ADJ	quick
3		NP-SBJ	ADJP;@2	ADJ	brown
4		NP-SBJ	N	fox
5		VBP;~Ipr	jumps
6		PP-CLR-DIR	P-ROLE	over
7		PP-CLR-DIR	NP	D	the
8		PP-CLR-DIR	NP	ADJP	ADJ	lazy
9		PP-CLR-DIR	NP	N	dog
10		PUNC	.
11	ID	example
12

    We next fill the matrix clause cell structure created in (13) with the IP-MAT tag, resulting in the completed tree information of (14).

(14)

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G
1	IP-MAT	NP-SBJ	D	The
2	IP-MAT	NP-SBJ	ADJP	ADJ	quick
3	IP-MAT	NP-SBJ	ADJP;@2	ADJ	brown
4	IP-MAT	NP-SBJ	N	fox
5	IP-MAT	VBP;~Ipr	jumps
6	IP-MAT	PP-CLR-DIR	P-ROLE	over
7	IP-MAT	PP-CLR-DIR	NP	D	the
8	IP-MAT	PP-CLR-DIR	NP	ADJP	ADJ	lazy
9	IP-MAT	PP-CLR-DIR	NP	N	dog
10	IP-MAT	PUNC	.
11	ID	example
12

    The completed tree information of (14) in traditional bracketed (Penn/CorpusSearch) format is (15). Note that the bracketing keeps consecutive constituents with the same node tag distinct, so that the node indexing introduced in (6) is no longer required.

(15)

( (IP-MAT
    (NP-SBJ (D The)
      (ADJP (ADJ quick))
      (ADJP (ADJ brown))
      (N fox))
    (VBP jumps)
    (PP-CLR-DIR (P-ROLE over)
      (NP (D the)
        (ADJP (ADJ lazy))
        (N dog)))
    (PUNC .))
  (ID example))

The completed tree information of (14) can be represented as the graphical tree (16).

(16)