discourse: boundary by word class (universal, with an English example)

Gist. After 2.18 the definition of discourse was rewritten. Now these are discourse expressions with grammatical properties that distinguish them from ordinary syntagmatic relations. The central cases are interjections, particles, item numbering, emoticons. Each language decides itself what belongs here, and for English it is said explicitly: adverbs (actually) and prepositional phrases (in other words) are not discourse but advmod and obl, even when they work as discourse markers.

Level. Universal, _u-dep/discourse.md. The English _en/dep/discourse.md only refers to this page, so for en this is a direct guideline change.

Before (2.18). 2.18:docs/_u-dep/discourse.md:8–14: interjections and other discourse particles, «not clearly linked to the structure of the sentence, except in an expressive way». For English — «non-adverbial discourse markers (well, like, but not you know or actually)» and item numbering.

Now (snapshot 24.09.2026). docs/_u-dep/discourse.md:

• :8–10 — expressions «with grammatical properties that distinguish them from expressions appearing in typical syntagmatic relations (like advmod, obl, advcl, parataxis, vocative, etc.)»;
• :11–19 — a list:
  • interjections: expressive (oh, Welcome), backchannel (yes, uh-huh), fillers (um);
  • particles that cannot be classed as adverbs or prepositions: interrogative, vocative;
  • item numbering;
  • emoji and emoticons with an extra-syntactic expressive function;
• :25–31 — «discourse is reserved as a syntactic function for constructions signaling discourse meaning in grammatically distinctive ways … In English, for example, we exclude from discourse any items from the lexical class of adverbs (actually) and prepositional phrases (in other words); these are simply advmod and obl».

The examples well, like, you know were removed from the text.

Evidence. diff 2.18:docs/_u-dep/discourse.md ↔ docs/_u-dep/discourse.md. There is no entry in changes.md: it counts as a minor clarification («Many minor clarifications are not listed»). There is no separate issue in the dump.

What it means for English annotation. The criterion is now word class, not meaning:

• ADV with discourse → advmod. EWT 2.18 has 9 of them (train 4, dev 1, test 4), GUM — 78 (so 57);
• a prepositional phrase with discourse → obl. In EWT 0: in other words — obl 5 of 5;
• emoticons with discourse are now named in the guideline: EWT has SYM with discourse 123 (:) 59, :( 9, :-) 8…);
• interjections (INTJ 775) and numbering (NUM 113) — unchanged;
• like and well as INTJ with discourse (27 and 58 in EWT) remain: they are interjections, not adverbs.

Registry. Unchanged: discourse is allowed; the registry does not check UPOS × relation pairs.

Sources. docs/_u-dep/discourse.md, 2.18:docs/_u-dep/discourse.md, docs/_en/dep/discourse.md; discourse on adverbs.

rule: udnext.discourse-not-adv
what: discourse is not for adverbs — in English ADV stays advmod
match: d[rel=discourse, upos=ADV]
require: not d[rel=discourse]
severity: error
source: UD docs/_u-dep/discourse.md:25–31 (snapshot 24.09.2026)

rule: udnext.discourse-not-pp
what: discourse is not for prepositional phrases — they are obl
match: d[rel=discourse]; c[rel=case, head=d]
require: not d[rel=discourse]
severity: error
source: UD docs/_u-dep/discourse.md:28–31 (snapshot 24.09.2026)

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/dialects/ud-next/seeds/discourse-scope/