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<Paper uid="W99-0302">
  <Title>The MATE Annotation Workbench: User Requirements</Title>
  <Section position="4" start_page="0" end_page="12" type="intro">
    <SectionTitle>
2 Why This is Itard
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> 'l'he'single llJOSt iml),Jrtanf, obstacb, t.o ann*Jtai,i~)n tool design is the fat:t l, hat ~:,,rpus anlu,tat.i~ms ar,.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> not n~:essarily hierarchically arrange'd, m;.king it.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> difficult to design data stru,%iires and aJlo,ril, hlim which can hart(lie th,~ui ,~tliciently bul. whirl, ar~- als,, llexiIJh ~. enough to jznak,~ it, C/:;my I,o inq~b~tn-nt w-w annotation st'henies. I&amp;quot;(,r i,stanc,., diah,g,n~- I,iKht useflnJly be annotated fi,r int.ent, i,mal M,l'llCl, llr*-, ill tonational strllC/:|,urC/~, {llzd sylll, aC/:ti,: strtlC/:l, llr,-, ;tlSd, in I'a(:t, for the inost del.ailcd empirh:al wC/,rk, ;tll t,f these annotations Inight be n,~,~(h~d shnnall.an~:,mHly so that relatiollshij)s anlonl.~ th{~ln C/:an I,: ,.xpb,rt-d.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> I~a(:h type ofstrllctilrC/: (:all r(~|'~r to SOlllC/&amp;quot; shar,,I I,;,s,: lev(:l of transcripti(m, whether (}rthogral~hi{: ~Jr ph,~ i|etic, with thnhlg hlforlnatiol{ wllt:r~ I,he spC/:r:,:h sip, ual is available. Each Lype of strlu:ture IlJight in volvo several kinds of tags (for h,stanc% dial,,g0,,~ IIIOVei'{ alid gallle8, or l)arf,-ofslJCi:cJJ lal,ellC/cd l.,,k,:{m) phra.ses, and senten,:es) but can I)e ,:,msid,:r-d 1,,, I,,: broadly hierarchic:el. I low(-.ver, th,.-hi~:rar,:hies them 8eJvc:s l\[lay or lnay not IJear any rC/:la, tionsJlilJ f.r~ ,:;t*:J{ other, a.s in l&amp;quot;igure I.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> Although it is possible to design I,,Jols whi,:h ,::m handle such coxnplex arrangements t)l&amp;quot; t;tgs, il, i,', Hlljtlh easier to (\]C/) SO when ;I, C/:onC/:r*:f~*~ sr:t of t;tEh is envisioned than to ilnpJP.n, Jr..nL a Itj,:neri,: ~,,lill.i,m which can be adapted 1,,, otlJ*:r tag s,~l.s. 'lh,:r,~l;,r% existing tools, (reviewed in MA'FE deliv,:ral,l,: 3.1 \[2\]), such a~s I)AT \[8\] t(md to support parti,:.lar ,:,,,1 ing schemes, at best allowing tags to be r,:nan,,:d ,,r extra categories to be added to a tag set wil.hh~ a strict family resemblan(-(- (for exampl% nl:l \[5\]), a,d, in fax:t, few irnplement sets of' Lag,.i whi~:l, ,:r,,,~s i, this way. In ax\]dition, e.xisting t,,~ls tend t,, haw fixed methods for displaying information an,l lix,:,l  j actions for coding. Since tools are often built for particular coding exercises, the user interface is also fixed, with no way of altering it to suit personal preferences. Although these limitations are understandable, they are not insurmountable. The MATE Workbench aims to improve on the current state-of-the-art by exploiting recent developments in corpus representation which allow a more flexible solution.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
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