Entity Annotation

Entity annotation is a broad and common category in FoLiA. It is used for specifying all kinds of multi-word expressions, including but not limited to named entities. The set definition used determines the vocabulary and therefore the precise nature of the entity annotation.

Specification

Annotation Category:
 

Span Annotation
Declaration:

<entity-annotation set="..."> (note: ``set`` is optional for this annotation type)
Version History:
 

Since the beginning
Element:

<entity>
API Class:

Entity
Layer Element:

entities
Span Role Elements:
 
Required Attributes:
 
Optional Attributes:
 
  • xml:id – The ID of the element; this has to be a unique in the entire document or collection of documents (corpus). All identifiers in FoLiA are of the XML NCName datatype, which roughly means it is a unique string that has to start with a letter (not a number or symbol), may contain numers, but may never contain colons or spaces. FoLiA does not define any naming convention for IDs.
  • set – The set of the element, ideally a URI linking to a set definition (see Set Definitions (Vocabulary)) or otherwise a uniquely identifying string. The set must be referred to also in the Annotation Declarations for this annotation type.
  • class – The class of the annotation, i.e. the annotation tag in the vocabulary defined by set.
  • processor – This refers to the ID of a processor in the Provenance Data. The processor in turn defines exactly who or what was the annotator of the annotation.
  • annotator – This is an older alternative to the processor attribute, without support for full provenance. The annotator attribute simply refers to the name o ID of the system or human annotator that made the annotation.
  • annotatortype – This is an older alternative to the processor attribute, without support for full provenance. It is used together with annotator and specific the type of the annotator, either manual for human annotators or auto for automated systems.
  • confidence – A floating point value between zero and one; expresses the confidence the annotator places in his annotation.
  • datetime – The date and time when this annotation was recorded, the format is YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss (note the literal T in the middle to separate date from time), as per the XSD Datetime data type.
  • n – A number in a sequence, corresponding to a number in the original document, for example chapter numbers, section numbers, list item numbers. This this not have to be an actual number but other sequence identifiers are also possible (think alphanumeric characters or roman numerals).
  • textclass – Refers to the text class this annotation is based on. This is an advanced attribute, if not specified, it defaults to current. See Text class attribute (advanced).
  • src – Points to a file or full URL of a sound or video file. This attribute is inheritable.
  • begintime – A timestamp in HH:MM:SS.MMM format, indicating the begin time of the speech. If a sound clip is specified (src); the timestamp refers to a location in the soundclip.
  • endtime – A timestamp in HH:MM:SS.MMM format, indicating the end time of the speech. If a sound clip is specified (src); the timestamp refers to a location in the soundclip.
  • speaker – A string identifying the speaker. This attribute is inheritable. Multiple speakers are not allowed, simply do not specify a speaker on a certain level if you are unable to link the speech to a specific (single) speaker.
Accepted Data:

<comment> (Comment Annotation), <desc> (Description Annotation), <metric> (Metric Annotation), <relation> (Relation Annotation)
Valid Context:

<entities> (Entity Annotation)

Explanation

Note

Please first ensure you are familiar with the general principles of Span Annotation to make sense of this annotation type.

The entities layer offers a generic solution to encode various types of entities or multi-word expressions, including but not limited to named entities. The set used determines the precise semantics behind the entities.

This annotation type, being the simplest of all span annotations, is much used in FoLiA.

It is recommended, but not required, for each entity to have a unique identifier.

Examples

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<FoLiA xmlns="http://ilk.uvt.nl/folia" version="2.0" xml:id="example">
  <metadata>
      <annotations>
          <token-annotation set="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LanguageMachines/uctodata/master/setdefinitions/tokconfig-eng.foliaset.ttl">
			 <annotator processor="p1" />
		  </token-annotation>
          <text-annotation>
			 <annotator processor="p1" />
          </text-annotation>
          <sentence-annotation>
			 <annotator processor="p1" />
          </sentence-annotation>
          <paragraph-annotation>
			 <annotator processor="p1" />
          </paragraph-annotation>
          <entity-annotation set="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/proycon/folia/master/setdefinitions/namedentities.foliaset.ttl">
			 <annotator processor="p1" />
		  </entity-annotation>
      </annotations>
      <provenance>
         <processor xml:id="p1" name="proycon" type="manual" />
      </provenance>
  </metadata>
  <text xml:id="example.text">
    <p xml:id="example.p.1">
      <s xml:id="example.p.1.s.1">
         <t>The Dalai Lama currently lives in Dharamsala in India.</t>
         <w xml:id="example.p.1.s.1.w.1" class="WORD">
            <t>The</t>
         </w>
         <w xml:id="example.p.1.s.1.w.2" class="WORD">
            <t>Dalai</t>
         </w>
         <w xml:id="example.p.1.s.1.w.3" class="WORD">
            <t>Lama</t>
         </w>
         <w xml:id="example.p.1.s.1.w.4" class="WORD">
            <t>currently</t>
         </w>
         <w xml:id="example.p.1.s.1.w.5" class="WORD">
            <t>lives</t>
         </w>
         <w xml:id="example.p.1.s.1.w.6" class="WORD">
            <t>in</t>
         </w>
         <w xml:id="example.p.1.s.1.w.7" class="WORD">
            <t>Dharamsala</t>
         </w>
         <w xml:id="example.p.1.s.1.w.8" class="WORD">
            <t>in</t>
         </w>
         <w xml:id="example.p.1.s.1.w.9" class="WORD" space="no">
            <t>India</t>
         </w>
         <w xml:id="example.p.1.s.1.w.10" class="PUNCTUATION">
            <t>.</t>
         </w>
         <entities>
             <entity xml:id="example.p.1.s.1.entity.1" class="per">
                 <wref id="example.p.1.s.1.w.2" t="Dalai" />
                 <wref id="example.p.1.s.1.w.2" t="Lama" />
             </entity>
             <entity xml:id="example.p.1.s.1.entity.2" class="loc.city">
                 <wref id="example.p.1.s.1.w.7" t="Dharamsala" />
             </entity>
             <entity xml:id="example.p.1.s.1.entity.3" class="loc.country">
                 <wref id="example.p.1.s.1.w.9" t="India" />
             </entity>
         </entities>
      </s>
    </p>
  </text>
</FoLiA>

It is possible to associate inline annotations with span annotations, provided you declare the annotation type with groupannotations="yes". For entities, this is useful in case you have a more fine-grained tokenisation layer but want to associate certain information such as part-of-speech tags or lemmas with larger entities than tokens:

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<FoLiA xmlns="http://ilk.uvt.nl/folia" version="2.0" xml:id="example">
  <metadata>
      <annotations>
          <token-annotation set="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LanguageMachines/uctodata/master/setdefinitions/tokconfig-eng.foliaset.ttl">
			 <annotator processor="p1" />
		  </token-annotation>
          <text-annotation>
			 <annotator processor="p1" />
          </text-annotation>
          <sentence-annotation>
			 <annotator processor="p1" />
          </sentence-annotation>
          <paragraph-annotation>
			 <annotator processor="p1" />
          </paragraph-annotation>
          <entity-annotation groupannotations="yes">
			 <annotator processor="p1" />
		  </entity-annotation>
          <pos-annotation set="brown"> <!-- This is an ad-hoc set declaration as it is no URL and therefore not really defined -->
			 <annotator processor="p1" />
          </pos-annotation>
          <lemma-annotation set="english-adhoc"> <!-- This is an ad-hoc set declaration as it is no URL and therefore not really defined -->
			 <annotator processor="p1" />
          </lemma-annotation>
      </annotations>
      <provenance>
         <processor xml:id="p1" name="proycon" type="manual" />
      </provenance>
  </metadata>
  <text xml:id="example.text">
    <p xml:id="example.p.1">
      <s xml:id="example.p.1.s.1">
         <t>The container-ship lost its cargo of bottle openers.</t>
         <w xml:id="example.p.1.s.1.w.1" class="WORD">
            <t>The</t>
            <pos class="AT" />
         </w>
         <w xml:id="example.p.1.s.1.w.2" class="WORD" space="no">
            <t>container</t>
         </w>
         <w xml:id="example.p.1.s.1.w.3" class="WORD" space="no">
            <t>-</t>
         </w>
         <w xml:id="example.p.1.s.1.w.4" class="WORD">
            <t>ship</t>
         </w>
         <w xml:id="example.p.1.s.1.w.5" class="WORD">
            <t>lost</t>
            <pos class="VBD" />
         </w>
         <w xml:id="example.p.1.s.1.w.6" class="WORD">
            <t>its</t>
            <pos class="PP$" />
         </w>
         <w xml:id="example.p.1.s.1.w.7" class="WORD">
            <t>cargo</t>
            <pos class="NN" />
         </w>
         <w xml:id="example.p.1.s.1.w.8" class="WORD">
             <t>of</t>
            <pos class="IN" />
         </w>
         <w xml:id="example.p.1.s.1.w.9" class="WORD">
            <t>bottle</t>
         </w>
         <w xml:id="example.p.1.s.1.w.10" class="WORD" space="no">
            <t>openers</t>
         </w>
         <w xml:id="example.p.1.s.1.w.11" class="PUNCTUATION">
            <t>.</t>
         </w>
         <entities>
             <entity xml:id="example.p.1.s.1.entity.1">
                 <wref id="example.p.1.s.1.w.2" t="container" />
                 <wref id="example.p.1.s.1.w.3" t="-" />
                 <wref id="example.p.1.s.1.w.4" t="ship" />
                 <pos class="NN" />
                 <lemma class="container-ship" />
             </entity>
             <entity xml:id="example.p.1.s.1.entity.2">
                 <wref id="example.p.1.s.1.w.9" t="bottle" />
                 <wref id="example.p.1.s.1.w.10" t="openers" />
                 <pos class="NNS" />
                 <lemma class="bottle opener" />
             </entity>
         </entities>
      </s>
    </p>
  </text>
</FoLiA>