---
title: "CATiB: The Columbia Arabic Treebank — Habash 2009"
description: "The release has about 1M tokens (31,319 trees), of which about 273K are new annotation. 9 references, cited by 60 papers here."
authors: ["Nizar Habash", "Ryan Roth"]
year: 2009
venue: "Proceedings of the ACL-IJCNLP 2009 Conference Short Papers"
source: "https://aclanthology.org/P09-2056/"
doi: "10.3115/1667583.1667651"
licence: "CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 (ACL Anthology, before 2016)"
licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/"
summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License"
canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/habash-2009-catib-columbia-arabic-treebank/"
---
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# CATiB: The Columbia Arabic Treebank

**Authors:** [Nizar Habash](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/nizar-habash/); [Ryan Roth](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/ryan-roth/) · **Year:** 2009 · **Venue:** Proceedings of the ACL-IJCNLP 2009 Conference Short Papers **Link:** [aclanthology.org/P09-2056](https://aclanthology.org/P09-2056/) · library `aclbulk-2009-habash-catib-columbia-arabic-treebank` · **Licence:** [CC BY-NC-SA 3.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/) (ACL Anthology, before 2016) — summary only

[**131** citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=cites:W2151690415) OpenAlex, 2026-10-14 · [**60** citations in our library](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/habash-2009-catib-columbia-arabic-treebank/cited-by/) of the 140,884 papers whose bibliographies we read · [Proceedings of the ACL-IJCNLP 2009 Conference Short Papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/acl/) · published by [Association for Computational Linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/publishers/association-for-computational-linguistics/) · [licence](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/)

- [Publisher's page](https://aclanthology.org/P09-2056/)
- [PDF](https://aclanthology.org/P09-2056.pdf)
- [DOI 10.3115/1667583.1667651](https://doi.org/10.3115/1667583.1667651)
- [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W2151690415)

**Authors (2)**

1. [Nizar Habash](https://openalex.org/A5084517393) [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1831-3457) · [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/1696645) · h 56 · 11,854 citations · 359 works
2. [Ryan Roth](https://openalex.org/A5111429160) [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/2066239830) · h 12 · 845 citations · 31 works

Citations and author metrics: OpenAlex, 2026-10-14; authors with the same name are not always told apart.

## What it is about

CATiB is an Arabic dependency treebank built for speed, for training parsers. It uses 6 part-of-speech tags (against more than 400 in the Penn Arabic Treebank) and 8 dependency labels, with terms from the traditional Arabic grammar (idafa, tamyiz). Case is left out, because it follows from syntax, and empty categories and co-indexation are not annotated. The pipeline is MADA&TOKAN for tokens and tags, a MaltParser model trained on a converted PATB part, and manual correction in TrEd. Inter-annotator agreement is about 91.5–91.7% for attachment and 88.6–88.8% for labeled attachment on the PATB sample, and lower on new text (89.2% and 85.0%). Annotators reach 540 tokens per hour, against 250–300 for PATB. A second annotation pass cut labeled-attachment errors by 20–50% on two documents at a cost of about 30% of speed. The release has about 1M tokens (31,319 trees), of which about 273K are new annotation.

## For Mova

- I1. A minimal label set. CATiB shows that a parser can be trained on a small set of labels (subject, object, modifier, possessive, specifier, topic, predicate, flat). Map Mova's own labels onto such a set and measure parser accuracy on the same trees with the full and the reduced set. This is a direct test of the abstract-annotation idea.
- I2. A second pass as a measurement. The paper runs serial annotation on the hardest and the easiest document and reports the error change. For Mova, run the rule checker and the parser over the same trees twice and count the labels that change; a stable result is a sign that the rule is well defined.
- I3. Report attachment and labeled attachment side by side. In the paper labels are harder to agree on than attachments (LABATT about 3 points below ATT). Mova's evaluation of `gparse` should show unlabeled and labeled scores as separate numbers, so that a label rule cannot hide behind a good attachment score.

I1 is a label mapping for `treebanks/ar` and for the Hebrew treebanks (`treebanks/hbo/ptnk`, `treebanks/he/`), checked with `gparse`. I2 is a check in `tools/macula compare`. I3 is the report format for `gparse` evaluation. The idafa label corresponds to the chain of [languages/hbo/08-syntax.md](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/hbo/08-syntax/).

## Institutions

[🎓**Columbia University** New York · United States 118 works · 44,744 citations](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/columbia-university/)

📚 Shelves 4[Computer Science · 6,918 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/computer-science/) · [Artificial Intelligence · 6,761 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/computer-science/artificial-intelligence/) · [Arts and Humanities · 3,111 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/) · [Language and Linguistics · 2,951 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/language-and-linguistics/)

🧭 Topics 2[Semitic languages · 1,336 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/semitic-languages/) · [Treebanks · 114 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/treebanks/)

## Cite

Cite as Nizar Habash and Ryan Roth. 2009. CATiB: The Columbia Arabic Treebank. Proceedings of the ACL-IJCNLP 2009 Conference Short Papers.

The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. [DOI 10.3115/1667583.1667651](https://doi.org/10.3115/1667583.1667651)

```bibtex
@inproceedings{habash2009catib,
  title = {{CATiB: The Columbia Arabic Treebank}},
  author = {Nizar Habash and Ryan Roth},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the ACL-IJCNLP 2009 Conference Short Papers},
  year = {2009},
  doi = {10.3115/1667583.1667651},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.3115/1667583.1667651}
}
```

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## References

9 references, 1 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet.

1. N. Habash, R. Faraj and R. Roth. 2009. Syntactic Annotation in the Columbia Arabic Treebank. In Conference on Arabic Language Resources and Tools, Cairo, Egypt. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=N%2E+Habash%2C+R%2E+Faraj+and+R%2E+Roth%2E+2009%2E+Syntactic+Annotation+in+the+Columbia+Arabic+Treebank%2E+In+Conference+on+Arabic+Language+Resources+and+Tools%2C+Cairo%2C+Egypt%2E)
2. N. Habash and O. Rambow. 2005. Arabic Tokenization, Part-of-Speech Tagging and Morphological Disambiguation in One Fell Swoop. In ACL’05, Ann Arbor, Michigan. [our card](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/habash-2005-arabic-tokenization-part-speech-tagging/)
3. N. Habash, R. Gabbard, O. Rambow, S. Kulick, and M. Marcus. 2007a. Determining case in Arabic: Learning complex linguistic behavior requires complex linguistic features. In EMNLP’07, Prague, Czech Republic. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=N%2E+Habash%2C+R%2E+Gabbard%2C+O%2E+Rambow%2C+S%2E+Kulick%2C+and+M%2E+Marcus%2E+2007a%2E+Determining+case+in+Arabic%3A+Learning+complex+linguistic+behavior+requires+complex+linguistic+features%2E+In+EMNLP%E2%80%9907%2C+Prague%2C+Czech+Rep)
4. N. Habash, A. Soudi, and T. Buckwalter. 2007b. On Arabic Transliteration. In A. van den Bosch and A. Soudi, editors, Arabic Computational Morphology. Springer. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=N%2E+Habash%2C+A%2E+Soudi%2C+and+T%2E+Buckwalter%2E+2007b%2E+On+Arabic+Transliteration%2E+In+A%2E+van+den+Bosch+and+A%2E+Soudi%2C+editors%2C+Arabic+Computational+Morphology%2E+Springer%2E)
5. S. Kulick, R. Gabbard, and M. Marcus. 2006. Parsing the Arabic Treebank: Analysis and Improvements. In Treebanks and Linguistic Theories Conference, Prague, Czech Republic. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=S%2E+Kulick%2C+R%2E+Gabbard%2C+and+M%2E+Marcus%2E+2006%2E+Parsing+the+Arabic+Treebank%3A+Analysis+and+Improvements%2E+In+Treebanks+and+Linguistic+Theories+Conference%2C+Prague%2C+Czech+Republic%2E)
6. M. Maamouri, A. Bies, and T. Buckwalter. 2004. The Penn Arabic Treebank: Building a large-scale annotated Arabic corpus. In Conference on Arabic Language Resources and Tools, Cairo, Egypt. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=M%2E+Maamouri%2C+A%2E+Bies%2C+and+T%2E+Buckwalter%2E+2004%2E+The+Penn+Arabic+Treebank%3A+Building+a+large%2Dscale+annotated+Arabic+corpus%2E+In+Conference+on+Arabic+Language+Resources+and+Tools%2C+Cairo%2C+Egypt%2E)
7. M. Maamouri, A. Bies and S. Kulick. 2008. Enhancing the Arabic treebank: a collaborative effort toward new annotation guidelines. In LREC’08, Marrakech, Morocco. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=M%2E+Maamouri%2C+A%2E+Bies+and+S%2E+Kulick%2E+2008%2E+Enhancing+the+Arabic+treebank%3A+a+collaborative+effort+toward+new+annotation+guidelines%2E+In+LREC%E2%80%9908%2C+Marrakech%2C+Morocco%2E)
8. J. Nivre, J. Hall, J. Nilsson, A. Chanev, G. Eryigit, S. Kubler, S. Marinov, and E. Marsi. 2007. MaltParser: A language-independent system for data-driven dependency parsing. Natural Language Engineering, 13(2):95–135. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=J%2E+Nivre%2C+J%2E+Hall%2C+J%2E+Nilsson%2C+A%2E+Chanev%2C+G%2E+Eryigit%2C+S%2E+Kubler%2C+S%2E+Marinov%2C+and+E%2E+Marsi%2E+2007%2E+MaltParser%3A+A+language%2Dindependent+system+for+data%2Ddriven+dependency+parsing%2E+Natural+Language+Engineer)
9. O. Smrž and J. Hajič. 2006. The Other Arabic Treebank: Prague Dependencies and Functions. In Ali Farghaly, editor, Arabic Computational Linguistics. CSLI Publications. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=O%2E+Smr%C5%BE+and+J%2E+Hajic%CC%8C%2E+2006%2E+The+Other+Arabic+Treebank%3A+Prague+Dependencies+and+Functions%2E+In+Ali+Farghaly%2C+editor%2C+Arabic+Computational+Linguistics%2E+CSLI+Publications%2E)

Updated 23 October 2026