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A Model for Language Annotations on the Web

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Knowledge Graphs and Semantic Web (KGSWC 2019)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 1029))

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Abstract

Several annotation models have been proposed to enable a multilingual Semantic Web. Such models hone in on the word and its morphology and assume the language tag and URI comes from external resources. These resources, such as ISO 639 and Glottolog, have limited coverage of the world’s languages and have a very limited thesaurus-like structure at best, which hampers language annotation, hence constraining research in Digital Humanities and other fields. To resolve this ‘outsourced’ task of the current models, we developed a model for representing information about languages, the Model for Language Annotation (MoLA), such that basic language information can be recorded consistently and therewith queried and analyzed as well. This includes the various types of languages, families, and the relations among them. MoLA is formalized in OWL so that it can integrate with Linguistic Linked Data resources. Sufficient coverage of MoLA is demonstrated with the use case of French.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For the sake of brevity, namespaces are assumed defined the usual way.

  2. 2.

    ISO 639 is the International Standard for language codes [1].

  3. 3.

    https://glottolog.org, www.ethnologue.com, http://multitree.org [05-03-2019].

  4. 4.

    https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/sout3200 [22-02-2019].

  5. 5.

    http://multitree.org/codes/xho [03-03-2019].

  6. 6.

    http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85148822.rdf [03-03-2019].

  7. 7.

    Language is constantly evolving. Influences by other languages due to cultural contact can result in lexical, phonetic and morphologic changes. The question when to characterize a language ‘a’ as ‘being influenced’ by a language ‘b’ depends on the granularity level of the analysis and is subject to discussion of linguists.

  8. 8.

    As sub-languoids of ‘Oïl’ (varieties that use an adaptation of the Vulgar Latin term hoc ille “this (is) it” as ‘Yes’); note that Francoprovençalic is a non-Oïl language.

  9. 9.

    Independent from diachronic issues, the hierarchy of modern French varieties also needs a revision (in line with “Most of the information on dialects in Glottolog [...] contains numerous errors and inconsistencies which we are aware of” [17]).

  10. 10.

    http://aims.fao.org/vest-registry/vocabularies/agrovoc [22-02-2019].

  11. 11.

    The term for the written representation of the spoken dialects of Old French [4, 206].

  12. 12.

    I.e., Moselle and Rhine Franconian for which a thorough revision on Glottolog is advised as well, see https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/fran1268 [24-02-2019].

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Knowledge and Information Stewardship, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

    Frances Gillis-Webber

  2. Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Heidelberg, Germany

    Sabine Tittel

  3. Computer Science Department, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

    C. Maria Keet

Authors
  1. Frances Gillis-Webber
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  2. Sabine Tittel
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  3. C. Maria Keet
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Frances Gillis-Webber , Sabine Tittel or C. Maria Keet .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Arvato Bertelsmann, Madrid, Spain

    Boris Villazón-Terrazas

  2. Universidad de las Ciencias Informáticas, Havana, Cuba

    Yusniel Hidalgo-Delgado

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Gillis-Webber, F., Tittel, S., Keet, C.M. (2019). A Model for Language Annotations on the Web. In: Villazón-Terrazas, B., Hidalgo-Delgado, Y. (eds) Knowledge Graphs and Semantic Web. KGSWC 2019. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1029. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21395-4_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21395-4_1

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