ISO 24617-12: A New Standard for Semantic Annotation

Abstract

This paper presents ISO 24617-12, an annotation scheme for quantification phenomena in natural language., as part of the ISO Semantic Annotation Framework (ISO 24617). This scheme combines ideas from the theory of generalised quantifiers, from neo-Davidsonian event semantics, and from Discourse Representation Theory. The scheme consists of (1) an abstract syntax which defines ‘annotation structures’ as triples and other set-theoretic constructs of quantification-related concepts; (2) a reference representation of annotation structures (‘concrete syntax’); and (3) a compositional semantics of annotation structures. Together, these components define the markup language QuantML. This paper focuses on the identification and structuring of the semantic information useful for the characterisation of quantification in natural language and the interoperable representation of these information structures in QuantML.