Text Annotation Guideline

This is our guideline for the manual annotation of noun phrases in natural language text.

For a given text document, we produce an annotation file of the same file name as the text document, but in TSV format (Tab separated value). The columns are

expression: the noun phrase
plurality: an indicator that specifies if the noun phrase is plural or singular
Yago4: the top-level class of Yago4
manifestation: the form that the head noun and its determiner take
modifiers: the terms that modify the head noun
vagueness: an indicator for the type of vagueness, if any

Each column (except plurality and Yago4) can take one or several space-separated values. Each value must come from a predefined list of values, which we detail next.

Expression

This column contains the noun phrase. We take the longest possible sequence of words that constitutes a noun phrase, including adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, and nouns, but excluding sub-ordinate phrases. The noun phrases are extracted by a script, and have to be verified and corrected by hand.

Plurality

This column indicates whether the noun phrase is plural or singular. Two values are permitted:

instance: for singular phrases
class: for plural phrases

We are interested here in the syntactic surface form, not the semantic plurality. Thus, the following are all instances: “A committee” (even if it is a group of persons), “a bird”, “the set of integers”, “Europe” (even if it a group of countries), and “intelligence” (even if it is a mass noun). “Men”, “soldiers”, and “groups”, in contrast, are classes.

Yago4 Class

This column can hold a single top-level class of the Yago taxonomy. The choice depends on the context: “America” can be a place (in sentences where it is the location where something happens), but also an organization (in sentences where it is a state actor). The classes are:

CreativeWork: anything that can be conceived and created by the human mind, including art works, books, ideas, theories, names, and languages: Mulholland Drive (movie), political philosophy, The radiocarbon work of Jonathan Haas, his campaign slogan, a graphic adventure puzzle video game, Climate engineering techniques
Action: any activity that can be pursued or engaged in by one or several humans, when it is considered in its generality (independently of a specific instance): smoking, comeback attempts, sexual abuse, the emission of greenhouse gases, geoengineering
Event: any time period, as well as anything that did, will, or could happen: his death, the last decades, in 2000, the 5th century BCE, the Age of Enlightenment, the early years of the Nazi regime, wildfires, heat waves, the resulting large-scale shifts in weather patterns
Organization: any group of people that act together under a common name and head for an extended period of time: Sun Records, multiple music halls of fame, a company, countries (if used in the sense of a state actor)
Place: any location, in particular also countries when they are used in a geographical context: various sites, That coastal strip, the lands of Anjou in France
Person: any person or group of persons: Elvis, a committee
Taxon: any living being except humans: all non-avian dinosaurs, birds
MedicalEntity: any entity that is an object of the field of medicine, including illnesses and parts of the body: nasopharyngeal cancer, the disease
Product: any physical object not yet covered by the above: six million CDs, the food supplies, computers, city trains, an asteroid
Intangible: any non-physical object not yet covered by the above: freezing temperatures, A distinct national identity, Canada’s allegiance, The painting’s influence, the geological feature

These categories should be checked in this order, using the first one that applies.

Manifestation

This column indicates the nature of the head noun and its determiner. It can contain one of the following values:

determined: generally “the XYZ”, or anything that is otherwise uniquely determined. Proper names do not need this value.
undetermined: generally “a(n) XYZ”, or plural words without determiner
qualified by anaphora: a noun phrase whose determiner is a possessive pronoun or demonstrative: his men, this literature, their start in video game development. However, in “Haas’s dates”, dates is not qualified by an anaphora.
numbered: a noun phrase with a quantity (by a number or adverbial phrases): 80 women, a few occasions, some of the problems, Many different flags, much of this water

In addition, and independently of the above, the column can contain one or several of the following values:

anaphora: a reference to a previously mentioned entity (except by full name): she, the volume, the battle
named: a proper name, usually with a capitalized head noun: his brother John. This does not apply if the noun phrase merely contains a noun, as in Mongol forces
mass noun: anything that cannot be counted without adding a unit: water, addition (some words are mass nouns only in specific contexts)

Modifiers

This column specified how the head noun is modified. Zero or more values are allowed:

adjective: the head noun is accompanied by one or several adjectives: the big city
preposition: the head noun is accompanied by one or several prepositions: the vote in the city
noun: the head noun is accompanied by one or several preceding nouns: vaccination movement
contains_name: the noun phrase as a whole contains a named entity: the vote in the US, Robert Kennedy’s assassination

Vagueness

This column indicates the type of vagueness. Possible values are:

degree: a threshold (even unknown or relative) can be used to determine if the expression is true. An example is the Heap paradox. Others are: the highland areas of the Andes (highland > T), the first book-length attempt (book-length > T).
portions: the number, the portion, or the quantity of the entity is unspecified: observers, some scripts, more than 100 people
subjective: the concept is vague by nature. It can apply to a certain degree, and there is no consensus on how to measure this degree: The painting’s influence, beautiful painting