To help you get started, we've collected the most common ways that unidic is being used within popular public projects.

SamuraiT / mecab-python3 / src / MeCab / __init__.py View on Github

def try_import_unidic():
    """Import unidic or unidic-lite if available. Return dicdir.

    This is specifically for dictionaries installed via pip.
    """
    try:
        import unidic
        return unidic.DICDIR
    except ImportError:
        try:
            import unidic_lite
            return unidic_lite.DICDIR
        except ImportError:
            # This is OK, just give up.
            return

View more ways to use unidic

unidic-py

This is a version of UniDic packaged for use with pip.

Currently it supports 2.3.0, the latest version of UniDic. Note this will take up 1GB on disk after install. If you want a small package, try unidic-lite.

The data for this dictionary is hosted as part of the AWS Open Data Sponsorship Program. You can read the announcement here.

After installing via pip, you need to download the dictionary using the following command:

python -m unidic download

With fugashi or mecab-python3 unidic will be used automatically when installed, though if you want you can manually pass the MeCab arguments:

import fugashi
import unidic
tagger = fugashi.Tagger('-d "{}"'.format(unidic.DICDIR))
# that's it!

Differences from the Official UniDic Release

This has a few changes from the official UniDic release to make it easier to use.

• entries for 令和 have been added
• single-character numeric and alphabetic words have been deleted
• unk.def has been modified so unknown punctuation won't be marked as a noun

See the extras directory for details on how to replicate the build process.

Fields

Here is a list of fields included in this edition of UniDic. For more information see the UniDic FAQ, though not all fields are included. For fields in the UniDic FAQ the name given there is included.

Fields which are not applicable are usually marked with an asterisk (*).

• pos1, pos2, pos3, pos4: Part of speech fields. The earlier fields are more general, the later fields are more specific.
• cType: 活用型, conjugation type. Will have a value like 五段-ラ行.
• cForm: 活用形, conjugation shape. Will have a value like 連用形-促音便.
• lForm: 語彙素読み, lemma reading. The reading of the lemma in katakana, this uses the same format as the kana field, not pron.
• lemma: 語彙素（＋語彙素細分類）. The lemma is a non-inflected "dictionary form" of a word. UniDic lemmas sometimes include extra info or have unusual forms, like using katakana for some place names.
• orth: 書字形出現形, the word as it appears in text, this appears to be identical to the surface.
• pron: 発音形出現形, pronunciation. This is similar to kana except that long vowels are indicated with a ー, so 講師 is こーし.
• orthBase: 書字形基本形, the uninflected form of the word using its current written form. For example, for 彷徨った the lemma is さ迷う but the orthBase is 彷徨う.
• pronBase: 発音形基本形, the pronunciation of the base form. Like pron for the lemma or orthBase.
• goshu: 語種, word type. Etymological category. In order of frequency, 和, 固, 漢, 外, 混, 記号, 不明. Defined for all dictionary words, blank for unks.
• iType: 語頭変化化型, "i" is for "initial". This is the type of initial transformation the word undergoes when combining, for example 兵 is へ半濁 because it can be read as べい in combination. This is available for <2% of entries.
• iForm: 語頭変化形, this is the initial form of the word in context, such as 基本形 or 半濁音形.
• fType: 語末変化化型, "f" is for "final", but otherwise as iType. For example 医学 is ク促 because it can change to いがっ (apparently). This is available for <0.1% of entries.
• fForm: 語末変化形, as iForm but for final transformations.
• iConType: 語頭変化結合型, initial change fusion type. Describes phonetic change at the start of the word in counting expressions. Only available for a few hundred entries, mostly numbers. Values are N followed by a letter or number; most entries with this value are numeric.
• fConType: 語末変化結合型, final change fusion type. This is also used for counting expressions, and like iConType it is only available for a few hundred entries. Unlike iConType the values are very complicated, like B1S6SjShS,B1S6S8SjShS.
• type: Not entirely clear what this is, seems to have some overlap with POS.
• kana: 読みがな, this is the typical representation of a word in kana, unlike pron. 講師 is こうし.
• kanaBase: 仮名形基本形, this is the typical kana representation of the lemma.
• form: 語形出現形, seems to be the same as pron.
• formBase: 語形基本形 seems to be the same as pronBase.
• aType: Accent type. This is a (potentially) comma-separated field which has the number of the mora taking the accent in 標準語 (standard language). When there are multiple values, more common accent patterns come first.
• aConType: This describes how the accent shifts when the word is used in a counter expression. It uses complicated notation.
• aModType: Presumably accent related but unclear use. Available for <25% of entries and only has 6 non-default values.
• lid: 語彙表ID. A long lemma ID. This seems to be a kind of GUID. There is usually one entry per line in the CSV, except that half-width and full-width variations can be combined.
• lemma_id: 語彙素ID. A shorter lemma id, starting from 1. This seems to be as unique as the lemma field, so many CSV lines can share this value.

License

The modern Japanese UniDic is available under the GPL, LGPL, or BSD license, see here. UniDic is developed by NINJAL, the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics. UniDic is copyrighted by the UniDic Consortium and is distributed here under the terms of the BSD License.

The code in this repository is not written or maintained by NINJAL. The code is available under the MIT or WTFPL License, as you prefer.