commit	c9b7c43aedf86020e172a2e5093b8f6f21383b33	[log] [tgz]
author	Marc Kupietz <kupietz@ids-mannheim.de>	Sat Mar 07 11:34:28 2026 +0100
committer	Marc Kupietz <kupietz@ids-mannheim.de>	Sat Mar 07 11:34:28 2026 +0100
tree	c954852a82226166aef8a8310477e63b16f3fe39
parent	ebf770ed13ad7709d754f552d2912a420c8ffb73 [diff]

tree: c954852a82226166aef8a8310477e63b16f3fe39

Readme.md

conllu-gender

Reads CoNLL-U format from stdin and annotates German gender-sensitive personal nouns, gendered determiners/pronouns, and neo-pronouns with correct POS (UPOS and XPOS/STTS), lemma, and morphological features. Writes CoNLL-U format to stdout.

Existing annotations for matched tokens are replaced; all other tokens pass through unchanged.

Background

Based on the morphosyntactic analysis in Ochs (2026), the tool covers all six gender-marker types distinguished by Ochs & Rüdiger (2025):

Type	Examples	Intent	`Gender` feature
Genderstern `*`	`Lehrerin`, `Bürgerinnen`	non-binary	`NonBin`
Doppelpunkt `:`	`Lehrer:in`, `Bürger:innen`	non-binary	`NonBin`
Unterstrich `_`	`Lehrer_in`, `Bürger_innen`	non-binary	`NonBin`
Binnen-I `I`	`LehrerIn`, `LehrerInnen`	binary	`Masc,Fem`
Klammern `()`	`Lehrer(in)`, `Lehrer(innen)`	binary	`Masc,Fem`
Schrägstrich `/`	`Lehrer/in`, `Lehrer/-innen`	binary	`Masc,Fem`

Annotation

Nouns (`NOUN` / `NN`)

Surface form	Lemma	FEATS
`Lehrer*in`	`Lehrer*in`	`Gender=NonBin\|Number=Sing`
`Lehrer*innen`	`Lehrer*in`	`Gender=NonBin\|Number=Plur`
`Lehrer:in`	`Lehrer:in`	`Gender=NonBin\|Number=Sing`
`Lehrer:innen`	`Lehrer:in`	`Gender=NonBin\|Number=Plur`
`Lehrer_in`	`Lehrer_in`	`Gender=NonBin\|Number=Sing`
`LehrerIn`	`LehrerIn`	`Gender=Masc,Fem\|Number=Sing`
`LehrerInnen`	`LehrerIn`	`Gender=Masc,Fem\|Number=Plur`
`Lehrer(in)`	`Lehrer(in)`	`Gender=Masc,Fem\|Number=Sing`
`Lehrer/in`	`Lehrer/in`	`Gender=Masc,Fem\|Number=Sing`
`Lehrer/-innen`	`Lehrer/in`	`Gender=Masc,Fem\|Number=Plur`

The lemma is always the nominative singular of the gender-marked derivate, preserving the original gender marker. Plural markers are stripped and their information encoded in Number=Plur. The Gender feature is retained for plural forms because the marker is still visibly present on the surface form.

Determiners (`DET` / `ART`, `PIAT`, `PWAT`, …)

Common gendered determiners are annotated.

Surface form	Lemma	FEATS
`jede*r`	`jede*r`	`Gender=NonBin`
`jede:r`	`jede:r`	`Gender=NonBin`
`eine*n`	`eine*n`	`Gender=NonBin`
`kein_e`	`kein_e`	`Gender=NonBin`
`die/der`	`die/der`	`Gender=Masc,Fem`

Non-binary markers (*, :, _) yield Gender=NonBin; Schrägstrich (/) yields Gender=Masc,Fem.

Pronouns / Neo-pronouns (`PRON` / `PPER`)

Merged pronoun pairs with gender markers receive Gender=NonBin:

Surface form	Lemma	FEATS
`sie*er`	`sie*er`	`Gender=NonBin`
`er:sie`	`er:sie`	`Gender=NonBin`

Lexicon-based neo-pronouns are matched by exact surface form (case-insensitive) against a built-in lexicon sourced from pronomen.net. All forms are tagged PRON PPER with Gender=NonBin|PronType=Prs; the lemma is the nominative form.

Verschmelzung (blend pronouns)

Paradigm (NOM/DAT)	NOM	GEN	DAT	ACC
sier/siem	`sier`	`sies`	`siem`	`sien`
xier/xiem	`xier`	`xies`	`xiem`	`xien`
ersie/ihmihr	`ersie`	`seinihr`	`ihmihr`	`ihnsie`

They-ähnlich

Paradigm	NOM	GEN	DAT	ACC
dej/denen/dej	`dej`	(deren)	(denen)	`dej`
dey/denen/dem	`dey`	(deren)	(denen)	(dem)
dey/denen/demm	`dey`	(deren)	(denen)	`demm`
ey/emm	`ey`	`eys`	`emm`	`emm`
they/them	`they`	`their`	`them`	`them`

Forms in italics are excluded from the lexicon because they are homonymous with standard German words (deren, denen, dem).

Neuer Stamm (new-stem pronouns)

Paradigm	NOM	GEN	DAT	ACC
el/em	`el`	`ems`	`em`	`en`
em/em	`em`	`ems`	`em`	`em`
en/en	`en`	`enses`	`en`	`en`
en/em	`en`	`ens`	`em`	`en`
ens/ens	`ens`	`ens`	`ens`	`ens`
et/siem	`et`	`sier`	`siem`	`sien`
ex/ex	`ex`	`ex`	`ex`	`ex`
hän/sim	`hän`	`sir`	`sim`	`sin`
hen/hem	`hen`	`hens`	`hem`	`hen`
hie/hiem	`hie`	`hein`	`hiem`	`hie`
iks/iks	`iks`	`ikses`	`iks`	`iks`
ind/inde	`ind`	`inds`	`inde`	`ind`
mensch/mensch	`mensch`	`menschs`	`mensch`	`mensch`
nin/nim	`nin`	`nims`	`nim`	`nin`
oj/ojm	`oj`	`juj`	`ojm`	`ojn`
per/per	`per`	`pers`	`per`	`per`
ser/sem	`ser`	`ses`	`sem`	`sen`
Y/Y	`Y`	`Ys`	`Y`	`Y`
zet/zerm	`zet`	`zets`	`zerm`	`zern`
/ (Stern)	`*`	`*s`	`*`	`*`

Note: oblique forms of et/siem (sier, siem, sien) are shared with the sier paradigm and annotated with lemma sier.

Known limitations

Binnen-I with non-final capital (e.g. jedEn, jedEr): these forms embed the capital letter at a non-final position; detection requires morphological analysis beyond simple pattern matching and is not currently supported.
Gendered adjectives (e.g. begeisterte*n): not yet annotated (occur in ~5 % of gendered NP elements per Ochs 2026, §7.3.2).
Inflected case suffixes on gendered nouns (e.g. genitive Lehrers*in, dative plural extra marking): rare and not detected.
Ambiguous neo-pronoun forms: dem, deren, denen are excluded from the neo-pronoun lexicon as they are indistinguishable from standard German determiners/pronouns without syntactic context. per is included despite its use as a preposition.

Usage

# Annotate CoNLL-U input
korapxml2conllu doc.zip | conllu-gender

# Sparse output (only annotated tokens, with their sentence headers)
korapxml2conllu doc.zip | conllu-gender -s

# Pipe with other KorAP annotation tools
korapxml2conllu doc.zip | conllu-cmc | conllu-gender | conllu2korapxml > doc.annotated.zip

Options

Option	Description
`-s`, `--sparse`	Print only tokens that received new annotations (with sentence headers).
`-h`, `--help`	Print usage guide.

Installation

npm

npm install 'git+https://gitlab.ids-mannheim.de/KorAP/conllu-gender.git'

Build from source

npm install

Build standalone binary

npm run pkg-linux   # Linux x64
npm run pkg-macos   # macOS x64
npm run pkg-win     # Windows x64
npm run pkg-all     # all platforms

Testing

npm test

References

Ochs, Samira/Rüdiger, Jan Oliver (2025): Of stars and colons: A corpus-based analysis of gender-inclusive orthographies in German press texts. In: Schmitz, Dominic/Stein, Simon David/Schneider, Viktoria (eds.): Linguistic intersections of language and gender. Of gender bias and gender fairness. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 31–62. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111388694.

Ochs, Samira (2026). Die morphosyntaktische Integration neuer Gendersuffixe: Eine korpusbasierte Analyse deutschsprachiger Pressetexte. Gender Linguistics, 2. https://doi.org/10.65020/0619d927