# J-UniMorph: Japanese Morphological Annotation through the Universal Feature Schema

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.14411 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.14411/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 7 of its 24 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 22 Feb 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [The SIGMORPHON 2019 Shared Task: Morphological Analysis in Context and Cross-Lingual Transfer for Inflection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.11493/) (2019)
- [The CoNLL--SIGMORPHON 2018 Shared Task: Universal Morphological Reinflection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.07125/) (2018)
- [CoNLL-SIGMORPHON 2017 Shared Task: Universal Morphological Reinflection in 52 Languages](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.09031/) (2017)
- [SIGMORPHON 2020 Shared Task 0: Typologically Diverse Morphological Inflection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11572/) (2020)
- [Morphological Reinflection with Multiple Arguments: An Extended Annotation schema and a Georgian Case Study](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.08527/) (2022)
- [K-UniMorph: Korean Universal Morphology and its Feature Schema](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.06335/) (2023)
- [On the Definition of Japanese Word](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.09719/) (2019)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Why do language models perform worse for morphologically complex languages?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.14198/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We introduce a Japanese Morphology dataset, J-UniMorph, developed based on the UniMorph feature schema. This dataset addresses the unique and rich verb forms characteristic of the language's agglutinative nature. J-UniMorph distinguishes itself from the existing Japanese subset of UniMorph, which is automatically extracted from Wiktionary. On average, the Wiktionary Edition features around 12 inflected forms for each word and is primarily dominated by denominal verbs (i.e., [noun] +suru (do-PRS)). Morphologically, this form is equivalent to the verb suru (do). In contrast, J-UniMorph explores a much broader and more frequently used range of verb forms, offering 118 inflected forms for each word on average. It includes honorifics, a range of politeness levels, and other linguistic nuances, emphasizing the distinctive characteristics of the Japanese language. This paper presents detailed statistics and characteristics of J-UniMorph, comparing it with the Wiktionary Edition. We release J-UniMorph and its interactive visualizer publicly available, aiming to support cross-linguistic research and various applications.