Named Entities

Encoding Names, Persons, Places and Dates

Content

TEI NAMES. PERSONS

Identifying what are now often referred to as named entities from the rest of a sea of words is just as important a task for today’s computational linguist building a language understanding system, or today’s digital historian tracing social networks within a corpus of 18th century correspondence
Lou Burnard (2014), What is the Text Encoding Initiative? , Marseille: OpenEdition Press.

Persons, Places, Dates

“I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull. He got a good estate by merchandise, and leaving off his trade, lived afterwards at York, from whence he had married my mother, whose relations were named Robinson, a very good family in that country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer"

Daniel Defoe, The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, 1719

Persons, Places, Dates

“I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull. He got a good estate by merchandise, and leaving off his trade, lived afterwards at York, from whence he had married my mother, whose relations were named Robinson, a very good family in that country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer”

Daniel Defoe, The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, 1719

Referring string

“I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull. He got a good estate by merchandise, and leaving off his trade, lived afterwards at York, from whence he had married my mother, whose relations were named Robinson, a very good family in that country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer”

Daniel Defoe, The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, 1719

Names in TEI

The TEI provides several ways of marking up names and nominal expressions.

    Core module
  • <rs> contains a string which refers to a person or place: "my mother", "he".
  • <name> contains a proper noun: "Robinson Kreutznaer", "Bremen".
  • @type differentiates persons and places.

    • More precise (extended module)
  • <persName>, <placeName>, <orgName>, <surname>, <forename>.

Encoding of names using the element <name>


I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull. He got a good estate by merchandise, and leaving off his trade, lived afterwards at York, from whence he had married my mother, whose relations were named Robinson, a very good family in that country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer

Add the attribute @type to differenciate types of names


I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull. He got a good estate by merchandise, and leaving off his trade, lived afterwards at York, from whence he had married my mother, whose relations were named Robinson, a very good family in that country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer

More precise tagging: namesdates module


He got a good estate by merchandise, and leaving off his trade, lived afterwards at <placeName>York</placeName>, from whence he had married my mother, whose relations were named Robinson, a very good family in that country, and from whom I was called 
	<persName>
		<forename>Robinson</forename>
		<surname>Kreutznaer</surname>
	</persName>

Components of personal names

  • <forename>, a forename or given name.
  • <surname>, a family name.
  • <roleName>, role or position in society (President, Queen).
  • <addName>, nickname, pseudonym, alias.
  • <nameLink>, connecting phrase or link (de, of, van, von).
<persName>
 <forename>Marie-Henri</forename>
 <surname>Beyle</surname>
 <addName type="pseudonym">Stendhal</addName>
</persName>

Signs in the text vs. the thing signs refer to

Signifiant (signifier) vs. Signifié (signified)

"[...] and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer; but, by the usual corruption of words in England, we are now called —nay we call ourselves and write our name— Crusoe; and so my companions always called me."

Robinson Crusoe

TEI distintion: <persName> vs. <person>

Encoding of references

I was called <persName>Robinson Kreutznaer </persName>; but, by the usual corruption of words in <placeName>England</placeName>, we are now called —nay we call ourselves and write our name— <persName>Crusoe</persName>

Encoding of referenced entities

<person>
 <persName>
    <forename>Robinson</forename>
    <surname xml:lang="en" type="corrupted">Crusoe</surname>
    <surname xml:lang="de" type="birth">Kreutznaer</surname>
 </persName>
 <birth when="1632">1632 <placeName>York</placeName>
 	</birth>
</person>

Organising named entities

  • Usually stored in the <teiHeader>
<teiHeader>
      <fileDesc>...</fileDesc>
      <profileDesc>
         <particDesc>
            <listPerson>
               <person>...</person>
               <person>...</person>
            </listPerson>
         </particDesc>
         <settingDesc>
            <listPlace>
               <place>...</place>
            </listPlace>
         </settingDesc>
      </profileDesc>
</teiHeader>
  • Create a separate XML file using <listPerson> entries.

Linking the association with @xml:id ← @ref 

<profileDesc>
     <particDesc>
        <listPerson>
           <person xml:id="RC">
              <persName>
                 <forename>Robinson</forename>
                 <surname type="corrupted">Crusoe</surname>
                 <surname type="birth">Kreutznaer</surname>
              </persName>
              <birth when="1632">1632</birth>
           </person>
        </listPerson>
     </particDesc>
 </profileDesc>

and from whom I was called <persName ref="#RC">Robinson Kreutznaer</persName>; but, by the usual corruption of words in England, we are now called —nay we call ourselves and write our name— <persName ref="#RC">Crusoe</persName>; and so my companions always called me.

Attribute @ref as pointing mechanism

 Entity defined within the same XML document  <persName ref="#RC">Robinson Kreutznaer</persName>
 In some other place, refered to by means of an URI <persName ref="http://www.example.com/fictionalcharacters.xml#RC">Robinson Kreutznaer</persName>
 Reference an existing authority file<persName ref="http://www.isni.org/0000000123478267">Daniel Defoe</persName>

Authority files: catalogs of names


(other way of) Referencing authority files

Identifier in the <idno> element 
<person xml:id="S1783">
	<persName>
		 <forename>Marie-Henri</forename>
		 <surname>Beyle</surname>
		 <addName type="pseudonym">Stendhal</addName>
	</persName>
	<birth when="1783-01-23">23-01-1783</birth>
	<death when="1842-03-23">23-03-1842</death>
	<occupation>writer</occupation>
	<nationality>French</nationality>
	<idno type="ISNI">0000000120981326</idno>
</person>

more info for person?

<birth>, <death>, <event>, <langKnowledge>, <faith>, <nationality>, <sex>, <age>, <occupation>, <note>, ...

TEI PLACES

TEI distintion: <placeName> vs. <place>

Encoding of references

I was born in the year 1632, in the city of <placeName>York</placeName>, of a good family, though not of that <rs>country</rs>

Encoding of referenced entities

<profileDesc>
	<particDesc>
		<listPerson>...</listPerson>
	</particDesc>
	<settingDesc>
		<listPlace>
			<place xml:id="york">
				<placeName>York</placeName>
				<location>
				 	<!--lat, long-->
					<geo>53.95767,-1.082304</geo>
				</location>
				<idno type="GeoNames">2633352</idno>
			</place>               
		</listPlace>
	</settingDesc>
</profileDesc>

Geo-political place names













Components of place names


  • <bloc> geo-political unit containing two or more nation states: Europe.
  • <country> geo-political unite: Italy.
  • <region> administrative unite: Lazio.
  • <settelment> name of a settlement: Rome.
  • <district> subdivision of a settlement: Trastevere.

Components of place names


  • <location>
    • geographical coordinates
      • <geo>
    • place name components
    • an address
      • <address>

Gazetteers: catalogs of places

Fictional places

<place type="fictional">
<placeName>Atlantis</placeName>
	<location>
	<offset>fifty leagues beyond</offset>
	<placeName>The Pillars of <persName>Hercules</persName></placeName>
	</location>
</place>
Kircher, Mundus Subterraneus, 1665

TEI DATES

    Core module: 3.5.4 Dates and Times

  • <date> a date in any format
  • <time> a phrase defining a time of day in any format 

    • I was born in the year <date when="1632">1632</date>, in the city of <placeName ref="#york">York</placeName>, of a good family, though not of that country

Attributes for date

    To normalize elements that contain dates, times, etc. in standard form (jjjj-mm-dd):

  • @when value of the date or time.
  • @notBefore the earliest possible date.
  • @notAfter the latest possible date.
  • @from indicates the starting point of a period.
  • @to indicates the ending point of a period.

@when a useful way of normalizing or disambiguating


	<birth when="1788-02-22">22 February 1788</birth>
	<birth when="1788-02-22">22 de febrero de 1788</birth>
	<birth when="1788-02-22">22 février 1788</birth>
	<birth when="1788-02-22">22/02/1788</birth>

References

José Luis Losada Palenzuela, Named Entities. Encoding Names, Persons, Places and Dates, <http://editio.github.io/presentations/named-entities.html>, 2019.

License Creative Commons

José Luis Losada Palenzuela · 2019