"alone": ADJ vs. ADV

[nschneid]

Originally raised in UniversalDependencies/docs#855:

Should "alone" be considered an ADV or depictive ADJ in "I did it alone"?

EWT and GUM both have ADJ and ADV instances of "alone".

Per the new policy on optional depictives, this would not affect the tree structure, but the deprel would differ: advmod (ADV) vs. advcl (depictive ADJ).

https://simple.wiktionary.org/wiki/alone (based on CGEL) is one point of reference.

[amir-zeldes]

I think "I did it alone" is ADV, and the CGEL based wiki seems to agree. I think the GUM cases reflect this distribution, with 24 ADV and only two ADJ:

• ...is alone/ADJ (concurs with CGEL)
• find oneself alone/ADJ/xcomp (i.e. find oneself [one-is-]alone)

(there are 2 errors of ADV for ADJ in predicate position, which I can fix)

[nschneid]

Fancier view: http://universal.grew.fr/?custom=627598c24250f

It looks pretty straightforward actually—ADJ for "be alone" and predicative uses like "leave alone" (xcomp); ADV/advmod for manner and focus modifier uses.

The hard one is "put it alone in a breeding tank"—I guess this is a resultative, like "paint the house blue", so xcomp?

[amir-zeldes]

Agreed. I also think "let alone", although 'fixed' underlyingly belongs to this type, so pos should be JJ. GUM Reddit has three cases and regular has one, but they were inconsistent, so I will consolidate to ADJ (but keep fixed, not xcomp, which seems sensible).