On coreferring: Coreference in MUC and related annotation schemes

Abstract

In this paper, it is argued that "coreference" annotations, as performed in the MUC community for example, go well beyond annotation of the relation of coreference proper. As a result, it is not always clear what semantic relation these annotations are encoding. The paper discusses a number of problems with these annotations and concludes that rethinking of the coreference task is needed before the task is expanded. In particular, it suggests a division of labor whereby annotation of the coreference relation proper is separated from other tasks such as annotation of bound anaphora and of the relation between a subject and a predicative NP.