Applying Universal Dependency to the Arapaho Language

This paper discusses the use of Universal Dependency for annotations of a Native North American language Arapaho (Algonquian). While some relations of the universal dependency perfectly correspond with those in Arapaho, language specific annotations of verbal arguments elucidate problems of assuming certain syntactic categories across languages. By critiquing the influence of grammatical structures of major European and Asian languages in establishing the UD framework, this paper develops guidelines for annotating a polysynthetic agglutinating language and sets a path to developing a more comprehensive cross-linguistic approach to syntactic annotations of language data.