ISO 24617-9:2019
(Main)Language resource management — Semantic annotation framework — Part 9: Reference annotation framework (RAF)
Language resource management — Semantic annotation framework — Part 9: Reference annotation framework (RAF)
This document provides a comprehensive model for the annotation and representation of referential phenomena in natural language texts and multimodal interactions. Such phenomena can cover simple anaphoric or coreferential mechanisms as well as more complex bridging or multimodal mechanisms. It provides a reference serialisation in XML defined as a customisation of the TEI P5 guidelines. In addition, the document describes the core data categories related to referential entities and link structures, and also needed for the description of annotation schemes and serialisation mechanisms for implementing conformant models as concrete data formats.
Gestion des ressources linguistiques — Cadre d'annotation sémantique — Partie 9: Cadre d'annotation de la référence (RAF)
Upravljanje jezikovnih virov - Ogrodje za semantično označevanje - 9. del: Referenčni okvir označevanja (RAF)
General Information
Standards Content (Sample)
SLOVENSKI STANDARD
01-marec-2021
Upravljanje jezikovnih virov - Ogrodje za semantično označevanje - 9. del:
Referenčni okvir označevanja (RAF)
Language resource management -- Semantic annotation framework -- Part 9: Reference
annotation framework (RAF)
Gestion des ressources linguistiques -- Cadre d'annotation sémantique -- Partie 9:
Référence (ISOref)
Ta slovenski standard je istoveten z: ISO 24617-9:2019
ICS:
01.020 Terminologija (načela in Terminology (principles and
koordinacija) coordination)
35.240.30 Uporabniške rešitve IT v IT applications in information,
informatiki, dokumentiranju in documentation and
založništvu publishing
2003-01.Slovenski inštitut za standardizacijo. Razmnoževanje celote ali delov tega standarda ni dovoljeno.
INTERNATIONAL ISO
STANDARD 24617-9
First edition
2019-12
Language resource management —
Semantic annotation framework —
Part 9:
Reference annotation framework
(RAF)
Reference number
©
ISO 2019
© ISO 2019
All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified, or required in the context of its implementation, no part of this publication may
be reproduced or utilized otherwise in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, or posting
on the internet or an intranet, without prior written permission. Permission can be requested from either ISO at the address
below or ISO’s member body in the country of the requester.
ISO copyright office
CP 401 • Ch. de Blandonnet 8
CH-1214 Vernier, Geneva
Phone: +41 22 749 01 11
Fax: +41 22 749 09 47
Email: copyright@iso.org
Website: www.iso.org
Published in Switzerland
ii © ISO 2019 – All rights reserved
Contents Page
Foreword .iv
Introduction .v
1 Scope . 1
2 Normative references . 1
3 Terms and definitions . 1
4 Basic principles . 2
5 Meta-model for reference annotation . 3
5.1 Overview . 3
5.2 Referring expressions . 3
5.3 Data categories for referring expressions . 4
5.4 Lexical relations . 5
5.5 Discourse entities . 5
5.6 Objectal relations . 5
5.7 Metadata . 5
6 Abstract syntax, concrete syntax, and semantics of annotations . 6
6.1 Introduction . 6
6.2 Abstract syntax . 6
6.2.1 Conceptual inventory . 6
6.2.2 Annotation structures: Entity structures and link structures . 7
6.3 Semantics . 8
6.3.1 Discourse entity structures and objectal relation links . 8
6.3.2 Referential expression entity structures and lexical relation links. 9
6.4 Implementing an XML serialisation compliant with the TEI P5 guidelines .10
6.4.1 Introduction .10
6.4.2 Namespace .10
6.4.3 Generic principles attached to a TEI compliant serialisation .10
6.4.4 Feature structures .11
6.4.5 General document architecture .12
6.5 Implementation of the Referring expression component .12
6.6 Implementation of the Discourse entity component .13
6.7 Implementation of referential relations.13
6.8 Objectal relations: grouping .14
6.9 Alternative linking: ambiguity .15
6.10 Multiple links .15
6.11 Representing referential chains .16
6.12 Bridging phenomena .16
Annex A (normative) Data categories for reference annotation .18
Annex B (informative) Complementary examples or partial examples referred to in the
main text of the document .25
Bibliography .26
Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) is a worldwide federation of national standards
bodies (ISO member bodies). The work of preparing International Standards is normally carried out
through ISO technical committees. Each member body interested in a subject for which a technical
committee has been established has the right to be represented on that committee. International
organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO, also take part in the work.
ISO collaborates closely with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) on all matters of
electrotechnical standardization.
The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance are
described in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular the different approval criteria needed for the
different types of ISO documents should be noted. This document was drafted in accordance with the
editorial rules of the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2. www .iso .org/ directives
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of
patent rights. ISO shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights. Details of
any patent rights identified during the development of the document will be in the Introduction and/or
on the ISO list of patent declarations received. www .iso .org/ patents
Any trade name used in this document is information given for the convenience of users and does not
constitute an endorsement.
For an explanation of the voluntary nature of standards, the meaning of ISO specific terms and
expressions related to conformity assessment, as well as information about ISO's adherence to the
World Trade Organization (WTO) principles in the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), see www .iso .org/
iso/ foreword .html.
This document was prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 37, Terminology and other language and
content resources, Subcommittee SC 4, Language resource management.
A list of all parts in the ISO 24617 series can be found on the ISO website.
Any feedback or questions on this document should be directed to the user’s national standards body. A
complete listing of these bodies can be found at www .iso .org/ members .html.
iv © ISO 2019 – All rights reserved
Introduction
This document is intended to complement the ISO 24617 series and to provide all the necessary
conceptual and technical mechanisms for the annotation of referential phenomena in multimodal
discourse. Reference phenomena are an essential component for the understanding and structuring of
discursive mechanisms, ranging from very basic pronominal relation to complex bridging anaphora.
Annotating such phenomena in an interoperable way improves the re-usability of language resources
in such applications in language technology as named entity recognition, text understanding and
synthesis, text summarization, information retrieval, automatic question-answering, man-machine
dialogue, and machine translation.
The content of this document builds upon various projects and software platforms that have been
dealing with reference annotation (RA), in particular the following References [9],[2],[16],[21],
[26],[25],[22],[5],[15],[13] but also the TEI P5 guidelines. Based on these and other previous works,
the Referential Annotation Framework (RAF) aims at providing a synthesized way of treating various
reference phenomena in discourse. In continuity with most practices in the field, RAF focuses on
marking up referring expressions in a discourse and the relations that hold between them and the
corresponding entities, whether this is based upon employing crowd sourcing or machine learning
strategies.
INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ISO 24617-9:2019(E)
Language resource management — Semantic annotation
framework —
Part 9:
Reference annotation framework (RAF)
1 Scope
This document provides a comprehensive model for the annotation and representation of referential
phenomena in natural language texts and multimodal interactions. Such phenomena can cover simple
anaphoric or coreferential mechanisms as well as more complex bridging or multimodal mechanisms. It
provides a reference serialisation in XML defined as a customisation of the TEI P5 guidelines. In addition,
the document describes the core data categories related to referential entities and link structures, and
also needed for the description of annotation schemes and serialisation mechanisms for implementing
conformant models as concrete data formats.
2 Normative references
The following documents are referred to in the text in such a way that some or all of their content
constitutes requirements of this document. For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For
undated references, the latest edition of the referenced document (including any amendments) applies.
ISO 24622-1, Language resource management — Component Metadata Infrastructure (CMDI) — Part 1:
The Component Metadata Model
TEI P5, Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange. Version 3.5.0. Last updated on 29th
January 2019. TEI Consortium. http:// www .tei -c .o
...
SLOVENSKI STANDARD
01-marec-2021
Upravljanje jezikovnih virov - Ogrodje za semantično označevanje - 9. del:
Referenčni okvir označevanja (RAF)
Language resource management -- Semantic annotation framework -- Part 9: Reference
annotation framework (RAF)
Gestion des ressources linguistiques -- Cadre d'annotation sémantique -- Partie 9:
Référence (ISOref)
Ta slovenski standard je istoveten z: ISO 24617-9:2019
ICS:
01.020 Terminologija (načela in Terminology (principles and
koordinacija) coordination)
01.140.20 Informacijske vede Information sciences
35.240.30 Uporabniške rešitve IT v IT applications in information,
informatiki, dokumentiranju in documentation and
založništvu publishing
2003-01.Slovenski inštitut za standardizacijo. Razmnoževanje celote ali delov tega standarda ni dovoljeno.
INTERNATIONAL ISO
STANDARD 24617-9
First edition
2019-12
Language resource management —
Semantic annotation framework —
Part 9:
Reference annotation framework
(RAF)
Reference number
©
ISO 2019
© ISO 2019
All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified, or required in the context of its implementation, no part of this publication may
be reproduced or utilized otherwise in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, or posting
on the internet or an intranet, without prior written permission. Permission can be requested from either ISO at the address
below or ISO’s member body in the country of the requester.
ISO copyright office
CP 401 • Ch. de Blandonnet 8
CH-1214 Vernier, Geneva
Phone: +41 22 749 01 11
Fax: +41 22 749 09 47
Email: copyright@iso.org
Website: www.iso.org
Published in Switzerland
ii © ISO 2019 – All rights reserved
Contents Page
Foreword .iv
Introduction .v
1 Scope . 1
2 Normative references . 1
3 Terms and definitions . 1
4 Basic principles . 2
5 Meta-model for reference annotation . 3
5.1 Overview . 3
5.2 Referring expressions . 3
5.3 Data categories for referring expressions . 4
5.4 Lexical relations . 5
5.5 Discourse entities . 5
5.6 Objectal relations . 5
5.7 Metadata . 5
6 Abstract syntax, concrete syntax, and semantics of annotations . 6
6.1 Introduction . 6
6.2 Abstract syntax . 6
6.2.1 Conceptual inventory . 6
6.2.2 Annotation structures: Entity structures and link structures . 7
6.3 Semantics . 8
6.3.1 Discourse entity structures and objectal relation links . 8
6.3.2 Referential expression entity structures and lexical relation links. 9
6.4 Implementing an XML serialisation compliant with the TEI P5 guidelines .10
6.4.1 Introduction .10
6.4.2 Namespace .10
6.4.3 Generic principles attached to a TEI compliant serialisation .10
6.4.4 Feature structures .11
6.4.5 General document architecture .12
6.5 Implementation of the Referring expression component .12
6.6 Implementation of the Discourse entity component .13
6.7 Implementation of referential relations.13
6.8 Objectal relations: grouping .14
6.9 Alternative linking: ambiguity .15
6.10 Multiple links .15
6.11 Representing referential chains .16
6.12 Bridging phenomena .16
Annex A (normative) Data categories for reference annotation .18
Annex B (informative) Complementary examples or partial examples referred to in the
main text of the document .25
Bibliography .26
Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) is a worldwide federation of national standards
bodies (ISO member bodies). The work of preparing International Standards is normally carried out
through ISO technical committees. Each member body interested in a subject for which a technical
committee has been established has the right to be represented on that committee. International
organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO, also take part in the work.
ISO collaborates closely with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) on all matters of
electrotechnical standardization.
The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance are
described in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular the different approval criteria needed for the
different types of ISO documents should be noted. This document was drafted in accordance with the
editorial rules of the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2. www .iso .org/ directives
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of
patent rights. ISO shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights. Details of
any patent rights identified during the development of the document will be in the Introduction and/or
on the ISO list of patent declarations received. www .iso .org/ patents
Any trade name used in this document is information given for the convenience of users and does not
constitute an endorsement.
For an explanation of the voluntary nature of standards, the meaning of ISO specific terms and
expressions related to conformity assessment, as well as information about ISO's adherence to the
World Trade Organization (WTO) principles in the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), see www .iso .org/
iso/ foreword .html.
This document was prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 37, Terminology and other language and
content resources, Subcommittee SC 4, Language resource management.
A list of all parts in the ISO 24617 series can be found on the ISO website.
Any feedback or questions on this document should be directed to the user’s national standards body. A
complete listing of these bodies can be found at www .iso .org/ members .html.
iv © ISO 2019 – All rights reserved
Introduction
This document is intended to complement the ISO 24617 series and to provide all the necessary
conceptual and technical mechanisms for the annotation of referential phenomena in multimodal
discourse. Reference phenomena are an essential component for the understanding and structuring of
discursive mechanisms, ranging from very basic pronominal relation to complex bridging anaphora.
Annotating such phenomena in an interoperable way improves the re-usability of language resources
in such applications in language technology as named entity recognition, text understanding and
synthesis, text summarization, information retrieval, automatic question-answering, man-machine
dialogue, and machine translation.
The content of this document builds upon various projects and software platforms that have been
dealing with reference annotation (RA), in particular the following References [9],[2],[16],[21],
[26],[25],[22],[5],[15],[13] but also the TEI P5 guidelines. Based on these and other previous works,
the Referential Annotation Framework (RAF) aims at providing a synthesized way of treating various
reference phenomena in discourse. In continuity with most practices in the field, RAF focuses on
marking up referring expressions in a discourse and the relations that hold between them and the
corresponding entities, whether this is based upon employing crowd sourcing or machine learning
strategies.
INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ISO 24617-9:2019(E)
Language resource management — Semantic annotation
framework —
Part 9:
Reference annotation framework (RAF)
1 Scope
This document provides a comprehensive model for the annotation and representation of referential
phenomena in natural language texts and multimodal interactions. Such phenomena can cover simple
anaphoric or coreferential mechanisms as well as more complex bridging or multimodal mechanisms. It
provides a reference serialisation in XML defined as a customisation of the TEI P5 guidelines. In addition,
the document describes the core data categories related to referential entities and link structures, and
also needed for the description of annotation schemes and serialisation mechanisms for implementing
conformant models as concrete data formats.
2 Normative references
The following documents are referred to in the text in such a way that some or all of their content
constitutes requirements of this document. For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For
undated references, the latest edition of the referenced document (including any amendments) applies.
ISO 24622-1, Language resource management — Component Metadata Infrastructure (CMDI) — Part 1:
The Component Metadata Model
TEI P5, Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange. Version 3.5.0. Last updated on 29th
Ja
...
INTERNATIONAL ISO
STANDARD 24617-9
First edition
2019-12
Language resource management —
Semantic annotation framework —
Part 9:
Reference annotation framework
(RAF)
Reference number
©
ISO 2019
© ISO 2019
All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified, or required in the context of its implementation, no part of this publication may
be reproduced or utilized otherwise in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, or posting
on the internet or an intranet, without prior written permission. Permission can be requested from either ISO at the address
below or ISO’s member body in the country of the requester.
ISO copyright office
CP 401 • Ch. de Blandonnet 8
CH-1214 Vernier, Geneva
Phone: +41 22 749 01 11
Fax: +41 22 749 09 47
Email: copyright@iso.org
Website: www.iso.org
Published in Switzerland
ii © ISO 2019 – All rights reserved
Contents Page
Foreword .iv
Introduction .v
1 Scope . 1
2 Normative references . 1
3 Terms and definitions . 1
4 Basic principles . 2
5 Meta-model for reference annotation . 3
5.1 Overview . 3
5.2 Referring expressions . 3
5.3 Data categories for referring expressions . 4
5.4 Lexical relations . 5
5.5 Discourse entities . 5
5.6 Objectal relations . 5
5.7 Metadata . 5
6 Abstract syntax, concrete syntax, and semantics of annotations . 6
6.1 Introduction . 6
6.2 Abstract syntax . 6
6.2.1 Conceptual inventory . 6
6.2.2 Annotation structures: Entity structures and link structures . 7
6.3 Semantics . 8
6.3.1 Discourse entity structures and objectal relation links . 8
6.3.2 Referential expression entity structures and lexical relation links. 9
6.4 Implementing an XML serialisation compliant with the TEI P5 guidelines .10
6.4.1 Introduction .10
6.4.2 Namespace .10
6.4.3 Generic principles attached to a TEI compliant serialisation .10
6.4.4 Feature structures .11
6.4.5 General document architecture .12
6.5 Implementation of the Referring expression component .12
6.6 Implementation of the Discourse entity component .13
6.7 Implementation of referential relations.13
6.8 Objectal relations: grouping .14
6.9 Alternative linking: ambiguity .15
6.10 Multiple links .15
6.11 Representing referential chains .16
6.12 Bridging phenomena .16
Annex A (normative) Data categories for reference annotation .18
Annex B (informative) Complementary examples or partial examples referred to in the
main text of the document .25
Bibliography .26
Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) is a worldwide federation of national standards
bodies (ISO member bodies). The work of preparing International Standards is normally carried out
through ISO technical committees. Each member body interested in a subject for which a technical
committee has been established has the right to be represented on that committee. International
organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO, also take part in the work.
ISO collaborates closely with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) on all matters of
electrotechnical standardization.
The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance are
described in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular the different approval criteria needed for the
different types of ISO documents should be noted. This document was drafted in accordance with the
editorial rules of the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2. www .iso .org/ directives
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of
patent rights. ISO shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights. Details of
any patent rights identified during the development of the document will be in the Introduction and/or
on the ISO list of patent declarations received. www .iso .org/ patents
Any trade name used in this document is information given for the convenience of users and does not
constitute an endorsement.
For an explanation of the voluntary nature of standards, the meaning of ISO specific terms and
expressions related to conformity assessment, as well as information about ISO's adherence to the
World Trade Organization (WTO) principles in the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), see www .iso .org/
iso/ foreword .html.
This document was prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 37, Terminology and other language and
content resources, Subcommittee SC 4, Language resource management.
A list of all parts in the ISO 24617 series can be found on the ISO website.
Any feedback or questions on this document should be directed to the user’s national standards body. A
complete listing of these bodies can be found at www .iso .org/ members .html.
iv © ISO 2019 – All rights reserved
Introduction
This document is intended to complement the ISO 24617 series and to provide all the necessary
conceptual and technical mechanisms for the annotation of referential phenomena in multimodal
discourse. Reference phenomena are an essential component for the understanding and structuring of
discursive mechanisms, ranging from very basic pronominal relation to complex bridging anaphora.
Annotating such phenomena in an interoperable way improves the re-usability of language resources
in such applications in language technology as named entity recognition, text understanding and
synthesis, text summarization, information retrieval, automatic question-answering, man-machine
dialogue, and machine translation.
The content of this document builds upon various projects and software platforms that have been
dealing with reference annotation (RA), in particular the following References [9],[2],[16],[21],
[26],[25],[22],[5],[15],[13] but also the TEI P5 guidelines. Based on these and other previous works,
the Referential Annotation Framework (RAF) aims at providing a synthesized way of treating various
reference phenomena in discourse. In continuity with most practices in the field, RAF focuses on
marking up referring expressions in a discourse and the relations that hold between them and the
corresponding entities, whether this is based upon employing crowd sourcing or machine learning
strategies.
INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ISO 24617-9:2019(E)
Language resource management — Semantic annotation
framework —
Part 9:
Reference annotation framework (RAF)
1 Scope
This document provides a comprehensive model for the annotation and representation of referential
phenomena in natural language texts and multimodal interactions. Such phenomena can cover simple
anaphoric or coreferential mechanisms as well as more complex bridging or multimodal mechanisms. It
provides a reference serialisation in XML defined as a customisation of the TEI P5 guidelines. In addition,
the document describes the core data categories related to referential entities and link structures, and
also needed for the description of annotation schemes and serialisation mechanisms for implementing
conformant models as concrete data formats.
2 Normative references
The following documents are referred to in the text in such a way that some or all of their content
constitutes requirements of this document. For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For
undated references, the latest edition of the referenced document (including any amendments) applies.
ISO 24622-1, Language resource management — Component Metadata Infrastructure (CMDI) — Part 1:
The Component Metadata Model
TEI P5, Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange. Version 3.5.0. Last updated on 29th
January 2019. TEI Consortium. http:// www .tei -c .org/ Guidelines/ P5/
Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Fifth Edition), W3C Recommendation 26 November 2008.
https:// www .w3 .org/ TR/ REC -xml/
IETF BCP 47, Tags for Identifying Languages, September 2009. https:// tools .ietf .org/ html/ bcp47
3 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply.
ISO and IEC maintain terminological databases for use in standardization at the following addresses:
— ISO Online browsing platform: available at https:// www .iso .org/ obp
— IEC Electropedia: available at http:// www .electropedia .org/
3.1
anaphora
linguistic mechanism by which the interpretation of a referring expression (3.7) depends on another
expression mentioned in the same text or discourse
Note 1 to entry: The notion of anaphora is more general than that of coreference (3.3): the interpretation of
anaphora is context-dependent, whereas coreference is determined rather rigidly independently to its possible
use of context (see Reference [25]).
Note 2 to entry: The
...
INTERNATIONAL ISO
STANDARD 24617-9
First edition
2019-12
Language resource management —
Semantic annotation framework —
Part 9:
Reference annotation framework
(RAF)
Reference number
©
ISO 2019
© ISO 2019
All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified, or required in the context of its implementation, no part of this publication may
be reproduced or utilized otherwise in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, or posting
on the internet or an intranet, without prior written permission. Permission can be requested from either ISO at the address
below or ISO’s member body in the country of the requester.
ISO copyright office
CP 401 • Ch. de Blandonnet 8
CH-1214 Vernier, Geneva
Phone: +41 22 749 01 11
Fax: +41 22 749 09 47
Email: copyright@iso.org
Website: www.iso.org
Published in Switzerland
ii © ISO 2019 – All rights reserved
Contents Page
Foreword .iv
Introduction .v
1 Scope . 1
2 Normative references . 1
3 Terms and definitions . 1
4 Basic principles . 2
5 Meta-model for reference annotation . 3
5.1 Overview . 3
5.2 Referring expressions . 3
5.3 Data categories for referring expressions . 4
5.4 Lexical relations . 5
5.5 Discourse entities . 5
5.6 Objectal relations . 5
5.7 Metadata . 5
6 Abstract syntax, concrete syntax, and semantics of annotations . 6
6.1 Introduction . 6
6.2 Abstract syntax . 6
6.2.1 Conceptual inventory . 6
6.2.2 Annotation structures: Entity structures and link structures . 7
6.3 Semantics . 8
6.3.1 Discourse entity structures and objectal relation links . 8
6.3.2 Referential expression entity structures and lexical relation links. 9
6.4 Implementing an XML serialisation compliant with the TEI P5 guidelines .10
6.4.1 Introduction .10
6.4.2 Namespace .10
6.4.3 Generic principles attached to a TEI compliant serialisation .10
6.4.4 Feature structures .11
6.4.5 General document architecture .12
6.5 Implementation of the Referring expression component .12
6.6 Implementation of the Discourse entity component .13
6.7 Implementation of referential relations.13
6.8 Objectal relations: grouping .14
6.9 Alternative linking: ambiguity .15
6.10 Multiple links .15
6.11 Representing referential chains .16
6.12 Bridging phenomena .16
Annex A (normative) Data categories for reference annotation .18
Annex B (informative) Complementary examples or partial examples referred to in the
main text of the document .25
Bibliography .26
Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) is a worldwide federation of national standards
bodies (ISO member bodies). The work of preparing International Standards is normally carried out
through ISO technical committees. Each member body interested in a subject for which a technical
committee has been established has the right to be represented on that committee. International
organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO, also take part in the work.
ISO collaborates closely with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) on all matters of
electrotechnical standardization.
The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance are
described in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular the different approval criteria needed for the
different types of ISO documents should be noted. This document was drafted in accordance with the
editorial rules of the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2. www .iso .org/ directives
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of
patent rights. ISO shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights. Details of
any patent rights identified during the development of the document will be in the Introduction and/or
on the ISO list of patent declarations received. www .iso .org/ patents
Any trade name used in this document is information given for the convenience of users and does not
constitute an endorsement.
For an explanation of the voluntary nature of standards, the meaning of ISO specific terms and
expressions related to conformity assessment, as well as information about ISO's adherence to the
World Trade Organization (WTO) principles in the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), see www .iso .org/
iso/ foreword .html.
This document was prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 37, Terminology and other language and
content resources, Subcommittee SC 4, Language resource management.
A list of all parts in the ISO 24617 series can be found on the ISO website.
Any feedback or questions on this document should be directed to the user’s national standards body. A
complete listing of these bodies can be found at www .iso .org/ members .html.
iv © ISO 2019 – All rights reserved
Introduction
This document is intended to complement the ISO 24617 series and to provide all the necessary
conceptual and technical mechanisms for the annotation of referential phenomena in multimodal
discourse. Reference phenomena are an essential component for the understanding and structuring of
discursive mechanisms, ranging from very basic pronominal relation to complex bridging anaphora.
Annotating such phenomena in an interoperable way improves the re-usability of language resources
in such applications in language technology as named entity recognition, text understanding and
synthesis, text summarization, information retrieval, automatic question-answering, man-machine
dialogue, and machine translation.
The content of this document builds upon various projects and software platforms that have been
dealing with reference annotation (RA), in particular the following References [9],[2],[16],[21],
[26],[25],[22],[5],[15],[13] but also the TEI P5 guidelines. Based on these and other previous works,
the Referential Annotation Framework (RAF) aims at providing a synthesized way of treating various
reference phenomena in discourse. In continuity with most practices in the field, RAF focuses on
marking up referring expressions in a discourse and the relations that hold between them and the
corresponding entities, whether this is based upon employing crowd sourcing or machine learning
strategies.
INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ISO 24617-9:2019(E)
Language resource management — Semantic annotation
framework —
Part 9:
Reference annotation framework (RAF)
1 Scope
This document provides a comprehensive model for the annotation and representation of referential
phenomena in natural language texts and multimodal interactions. Such phenomena can cover simple
anaphoric or coreferential mechanisms as well as more complex bridging or multimodal mechanisms. It
provides a reference serialisation in XML defined as a customisation of the TEI P5 guidelines. In addition,
the document describes the core data categories related to referential entities and link structures, and
also needed for the description of annotation schemes and serialisation mechanisms for implementing
conformant models as concrete data formats.
2 Normative references
The following documents are referred to in the text in such a way that some or all of their content
constitutes requirements of this document. For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For
undated references, the latest edition of the referenced document (including any amendments) applies.
ISO 24622-1, Language resource management — Component Metadata Infrastructure (CMDI) — Part 1:
The Component Metadata Model
TEI P5, Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange. Version 3.5.0. Last updated on 29th
January 2019. TEI Consortium. http:// www .tei -c .org/ Guidelines/ P5/
Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Fifth Edition), W3C Recommendation 26 November 2008.
https:// www .w3 .org/ TR/ REC -xml/
IETF BCP 47, Tags for Identifying Languages, September 2009. https:// tools .ietf .org/ html/ bcp47
3 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply.
ISO and IEC maintain terminological databases for use in standardization at the following addresses:
— ISO Online browsing platform: available at https:// www .iso .org/ obp
— IEC Electropedia: available at http:// www .electropedia .org/
3.1
anaphora
linguistic mechanism by which the interpretation of a referring expression (3.7) depends on another
expression mentioned in the same text or discourse
Note 1 to entry: The notion of anaphora is more general than that of coreference (3.3): the interpretation of
anaphora is context-dependent, whereas coreference is determined rather rigidly independently to its possible
use of context (see Reference [25]).
Note 2 to entry: The
...
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