diff --git a/stanza/models/mwt/data.py b/stanza/models/mwt/data.py
index dba58ca3a7..b8b0b2f1e9 100644
--- a/stanza/models/mwt/data.py
+++ b/stanza/models/mwt/data.py
@@ -13,11 +13,18 @@
 
 logger = logging.getLogger('stanza')
 
+# enforce that the MWT splitter knows about a couple different alternate apostrophes
+# including covering some potential " typos
+# setting the augmentation to a very low value should be enough to teach it
+# about the unknown characters without messing up the predictions for other text
+APOS = ('"', '’', 'ʼ')
+
 # TODO: can wrap this in a Pytorch DataLoader, such as what was done for POS
 class DataLoader:
     def __init__(self, doc, batch_size, args, vocab=None, evaluation=False, expand_unk_vocab=False):
         self.batch_size = batch_size
         self.args = args
+        self.augment_apos = args.get('augment_apos', 0.0)
         self.evaluation = evaluation
         self.doc = doc
 
@@ -25,7 +32,11 @@ def __init__(self, doc, batch_size, args, vocab=None, evaluation=False, expand_u
 
         # handle vocab
         if vocab is None:
+            assert self.evaluation == False # for eval vocab must exist
             self.vocab = self.init_vocab(data)
+            if self.augment_apos > 0 and "'" in self.vocab:
+                for apos in APOS:
+                    self.vocab.add_unit(apos)
         elif expand_unk_vocab:
             self.vocab = DeltaVocab(data, vocab)
         else:
@@ -54,9 +65,18 @@ def init_vocab(self, data):
         vocab = Vocab(data, self.args['shorthand'])
         return vocab
 
+    def maybe_augment_apos(self, datum):
+        if "'" in datum[0] and random.uniform(0,1) < self.augment_apos:
+            replacement = random.choice(APOS)
+            datum = (datum[0].replace("'", replacement), datum[1].replace("'", replacement))
+        return datum
+
+
     def process(self, data):
         processed = []
         for d in data:
+            if not self.evaluation and self.augment_apos > 0:
+                d = self.maybe_augment_apos(d)
             src = list(d[0])
             src = [constant.SOS] + src + [constant.EOS]
             tgt_in, tgt_out = self.prepare_target(self.vocab, d)
diff --git a/stanza/models/mwt/vocab.py b/stanza/models/mwt/vocab.py
index 776a41c3af..0c861e7a49 100644
--- a/stanza/models/mwt/vocab.py
+++ b/stanza/models/mwt/vocab.py
@@ -11,3 +11,9 @@ def build_vocab(self):
 
         self._id2unit = constant.VOCAB_PREFIX + list(sorted(list(counter.keys()), key=lambda k: counter[k], reverse=True))
         self._unit2id = {w:i for i, w in enumerate(self._id2unit)}
+
+    def add_unit(self, unit):
+        if unit in self._unit2id:
+            return
+        self._unit2id[unit] = len(self._id2unit)
+        self._id2unit.append(unit)
diff --git a/stanza/models/mwt_expander.py b/stanza/models/mwt_expander.py
index 8f68cfca66..87eadbb8a0 100644
--- a/stanza/models/mwt_expander.py
+++ b/stanza/models/mwt_expander.py
@@ -61,6 +61,7 @@ def build_argparse():
     parser.add_argument('--attn_type', default='soft', choices=['soft', 'mlp', 'linear', 'deep'], help='Attention type')
     parser.add_argument('--no_copy', dest='copy', action='store_false', help='Do not use copy mechanism in MWT expansion. By default copy mechanism is used to improve generalization.')
 
+    parser.add_argument('--augment_apos', default=0.01, type=float, help='At training time, how much to augment |\'| to |"| |’| |ʼ|')
     parser.add_argument('--force_exact_pieces', default=None, action='store_true', help='If possible, make the text of the pieces of the MWT add up to the token itself.  (By default, this is determined from the dataset.)')
     parser.add_argument('--no_force_exact_pieces', dest='force_exact_pieces', action='store_false', help="Don't make the text of the pieces of the MWT add up to the token itself.  (By default, this is determined from the dataset.)")