Multi-layered semantic annotation and the formalisation of annotation schemas for the investigation of modality in a Latin corpus

This paper stems from the project A World of Possibilities. Modal pathways over an extra-long period of time: the diachrony of modality in the Latin language (WoPoss) which involves a corpus-based approach to the study of modality in the history of the Latin language. Linguistic annotation and, in particular, the semantic annotation of modality is a keystone of the project. Besides the difficulties intrinsic to any annotation task dealing with semantics, our annotation scheme involves multiple layers of annotation that are interconnected, adding complexity to the task. Considering the intricacies of our fine-grained semantic annotation, we needed to develop well-documented schemas in order to control the consistency of the annotation, but also to enable an efficient reuse of our annotated corpus. This paper presents the different elements involved in the annotation task, and how the description and the relations between the different linguistic components were formalised and documented, combining schema languages with XML documentation.