Cannot Annotate root Under Default UD Framework in INCEpTION

[Sanatbek Matlatipov]

Hello INCEpTION Support Team,

I hope you are doing well. I am currently working on the Uzbek Universal Dependencies (UD) treebank, using the default Universal Dependencies framework within INCEpTION. However, I am unable to annotate the root relation because my dependency layer is locked as a “Relation” type (de.tudarmstadt.ukp.dkpro.core.api.syntax.type.dependency.Dependency), and the system prevents changing the layer type.

I’ve attached a screenshot of my layers settings for the “Dependency -> Relation” configuration. As shown, I don’t see an option for “Allow empty governor” or any mechanism to mark a token as root (i.e., HEAD=0). I’ve also confirmed that root is in my dependency tagset, but there is no clear way to assign it during annotation.

Could you please advise on how to enable root annotation in my project? Specifically, I am not sure:

1. How to allow a token to be assigned as root (governor = null or self).

2. Whether I need to create a new “Dependency” layer and, if so, how to migrate existing annotations.

Thank you very much for your support and guidance. I appreciate any steps you can provide to resolve this issue.

I alsop attached one example, where I am not able to annotate the root in that simple sentence

P.S. I installed the INCEPTION system approximately 6 months ago and I do not know how to upgrade(in an easy way, if you think it is necessary)

Best regards,

[Richard Eckart de Castilho]

Hi,

> On 5. Apr 2025, at 08:11, Sanatbek Matlatipov <sanatbek....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I’ve attached a screenshot of my layers settings for the “Dependency -> Relation” configuration. As shown, I don’t see an option for “Allow empty governor” or any mechanism to mark a token as root (i.e., HEAD=0). I’ve also confirmed that root is in my dependency tagset, but there is no clear way to assign it during annotation.

in order to create a self-referencing root node:

- click on a part-of-speech annotation and keep the left mouse button pressed
- hold the shift key
- move the mouse a little the side until the arc appears
- move the mouse back over the POS annotation
- release the left mouse button

alternatively

- click on the part-of-speech annotation to select it
- right-click on the same annotation
- click on "Link to" in the popup menu

Once you have the self-referencing relation, you assigned the "root" label to it.

Voilà :)

-- Richard