AGTK: the annotation graph toolkit

Steven Bird, Kazuaki Maeda, Xiaoyi Ma
University of Pennsylvania

Annotation graphs (AGs) provide an efficient and expressive data model for
linguistic annotations of time-series data [1].  Recently, the LDC has been
developing a complete software infrastructure supporting the rapid
development of tools for transcribing and annotating time-series data, in
cooperation with the developers of other widely used tools.  Existing
annotation tools are based on a two level model, whereas the tools we
demonstrate are based around a three level model in which annotation graphs
provide a logical level independent of application and physical levels.
Two of the LDC's annotation tools will be demonstrated: one for
transcribing multi-party conversation (MultiTrans) and one for
observational coding (TableTrans).  All software is being made available
under an open source licence [2].

[1] Steven Bird and Mark Liberman (2001)
    A formal framework for linguistic annotation 
    Speech Communication 33(1,2), pp 23-60. 
    http://arXiv.org/abs/cs/0010033

[2] Annotation Graph Homepage
    http://www.ldc.upenn.edu/AG/