annotation/GUIDELINES.md

Persian NER annotation guidelines, v2.2

Labels: PER, LOC, ORG, DAT. Everything else is O. Spans are contiguous token sequences on the PerDT --merge-subtokens tokenization; an entity text must be reproducible by joining consecutive tokens with single spaces.

These conventions were inferred from PerDT's silver NER layer (Beheshti-NER output with manual corrections, corpus/perdt-ner-iob/train.txt, 26,196 sentences) so that new annotations agree with the bulk of the existing data. Where the silver layer is inconsistent, the majority rule is stated and the minority is called out as an error to correct. Counts are train-split.

General

1. Annotate every mention, including repeats within a sentence.
2. Do not nest or overlap. The longest span that is itself a name wins: دانشگاه تهران is one ORG, not ORG around a LOC; شرکت مخابرات ایران is one ORG.
3. Coordinated names are separate spans: ایران و عراق is LOC + LOC.
4. Nationality and language adjectives and demonyms are O: ایرانی (181/181 O), آمریکایی, ایرانیان, مسلمانان, فارسی, انگلیسی.
5. Religions, ideologies, scriptures and literary works are O: اسلام, قرآن, شاهنامه.
6. Generic role nouns are O and sit outside the span: رئیس جمهور ایران labels only ایران (LOC); وزیر and رئیس precede ORG spans but are never inside them.

PER

7. Personal names, including religious and historical figures: علی, احمدی‌نژاد, داریوش, اوباما, پیامبر, رسول خدا, امام حسین.
8. Secular honorifics and titles are O, outside the span: آقای (140/141 O), دکتر (104/107 O), آیت‌الله, استاد, ارتشبد. آقای احمدی‌نژاد → [احمدی‌نژاد].
9. Religious titles fused with the name are inside the span: امام (217 B-PER), حضرت (129 B-PER), سید: [امام صادق], [حضرت علی], [سید محمدحسن ابوترابی‌فرد].
10. Blessing formulas: the spelled-out علیه‌السلام directly after a name is inside the span (88/98): [امام صادق علیه‌السلام]. The abbreviated parenthetical ( ع ) / ( ص ) is entirely O: [امام حسین] ( ع ). (The silver layer tags the opening ( as I-PER 295 times; that is a tokenization artefact, correct it.)
11. خدا and الله alone are O (520/566); رسول خدا as a name of the Prophet is PER.
12. Patronymic chains are one span: [احمد بن محمد بن عیسی].

LOC

13. Countries, cities, provinces, regions, continents, bodies of water, planets: ایران, تهران, خاورمیانه, اروپا, خلیج فارس, مریخ.
14. Geographic head nouns are INSIDE the span when directly followed by the name: [شهر تهران] (88 vs 4), [استان گلستان] (69 vs 0), [منطقهٔ ...] (32 vs 4), [کشور روسیه] (27 vs 5). Alone, without a name, they are O (کشور alone 440 O).
15. جهان ("the world") is LOC when it denotes the world as a place (در جهان, بزرگ‌ترین تالاب جهان), 202 vs 87. زمین is LOC only as the planet (کرهٔ زمین), otherwise O (250 O).
16. Metonymic country/capital names acting as governments stay LOC: تهران اعلام کرد.
17. مردم ایران, ملت ایران: only ایران is labelled.
18. Compass terms are O unless they are part of a named region: غرب alone O (84 vs 15), and غرب meaning "the West" as a civilisation or political bloc is O too (مدل‌برداری از غرب, پوشش‌های مبتذل غرب). [غرب تهران], [خاورمیانه] are LOC.

ORG

19. Companies, institutions, ministries, parties, armed groups, sports clubs, media outlets, banks, universities, international bodies: گوگل, طالبان, استقلال, سازمان ملل, بانک مرکزی, مجلس شورای اسلامی, صدا و سیما, اینترپل, ساواک.
20. Organisational head nouns are INSIDE the span when followed by a specifier: [دولت ایران], [وزارت امور خارجه], [شرکت مخابرات ایران], [تیم استقلال], [سفارت ایران], [ارتش دریایی ایران], [دانشگاه تهران], [تیم ملی بوکس]. A head noun with no specifier is O, even when it clearly denotes one institution in context: دولت alone 221 O, تیم 129 O, مجلس 132 O, and likewise bare شهرداری, فدراسیون, وزارت, سفارت, دانشگاه, تیم ملی. "The municipality collects its dues" labels nothing; [شهرداری تهران] is ORG.
21. A country name inside such a phrase belongs to the ORG span, not a separate LOC (103 ORG spans end in ایران).
22. Political entities named as states are ORG: جمهوری اسلامی, جمهوری اسلامی ایران, رژیم صهیونیستی, رژیم ایران.
23. News agencies cited as sources are ORG: به گزارش خبرنگار [مهر].

DAT

24. Absolute dates and years, including the head noun سال/ماه/روز when present: [سال 1974], [ماه رمضان], [روز جمعه], [سی‌ام اکتبر سال 1910], [سال هزار و هشتصد و یازده], [ماه ژوئن سال 2011].
25. Relative date expressions are DAT: امروز (149), فردا, دیروز, امسال, [سال گذشته], [سال جاری], [هفتهٔ آینده], [این هفته] (10 vs 0), [روز گذشته]. The vague deictics این روزها (0/24), این ماه (0/6) and این سال (0/3) are O: the silver layer treats them as "nowadays", not as a dated period.
26. Durations anchored to now are DAT: [10 سال پیش], [سه دهه پیش], [یک ماه قبل]. Unanchored durations are O: به مدت سه سال.
27. A date range with از ... تا/الی ... is ONE span including از and تا: [از بهمن 1343 تا خرداد 1357], [از سال 1375 تا سال 1386], [از 420 تا 438 میلادی]. [از آغاز امسال] تاکنون: تاکنون is outside.
28. Calendar suffixes are inside: [سال 1251 شمسی], [438 میلادی]; the abbreviated ه . ش after a year is outside.
29. Eras and dynasties as periods are O (هخامنشی, ساسانی), and so are historic empires named after them (امپراطوری پارس); named festivals نوروز, عاشورا are O on their own (نوروز 30 O vs 3 DAT, عاشورا 41/0), including attributive use (تشریفات نوروز). A festival phrase headed by سال/ماه/روز, or carrying a year, is DAT under rule 24: [ماه رمضان], [سال نو چینی], [نوروز امسال].
30. Times of day, clock times, money and percentages are O in this label set.

Cases v1 left open, decided in v2

31. Events are O. The label set has no EVENT class, and an event is not the organisation that runs it: نمایشگاه CES, جام جهانی, المپیک, لیگ قهرمانان آسیا are all O. The organising or competing body is still ORG when named: [فدراسیون فوتبال].
32. Habitual and frequency expressions are O: هر روز, هر شب, هر هفته, روزانه, همه‌روزه. Only absolute dates (rule 24), relative dates (rule 25) and now-anchored durations (rule 26) are DAT. هر روز is a habit; امروز is a date.
33. A religious title is part of a PER span only when a personal name follows it (rule 9): [امام صادق], [حضرت علی], [امام خمینی]. Standing alone it is O, whatever it refers to in context: امام with no name following is O 128 times against 12 PER, حضرت 81 against 3. So حضرت فرمودند, آن حضرت, به محضر حضرت and امام ( ع ) فرمود label nothing. Collective references are O as well: ائمهٔ اطهار, اهل‌بیت, معصومین. پیامبر and رسول خدا stay PER (rule 7): they are used as the name of one person, not as a title before a name.
34. Peoples, tribes and ethnic groups are O, consistent with rule 4: قوم مایا, ترکمن, اعراب, کردها. A place named after such a group is still LOC.
35. A personal name used as an epithet is still PER: [امیرکبیر] فوتبال ایران. The name is the entity; the metaphor does not change that. (The silver layer usually leaves these unlabelled; this is a deliberate deviation.)
36. دنیا is O, and does NOT follow rule 15 the way جهان does. The two words diverge sharply in the silver layer: جهان is LOC 202 times against 87 O, while دنیا is O 240 times against 20 LOC. So در سراسر دنیا and قفس دنیا label nothing, while در جهان is LOC.
37. Century expressions are DAT, including the head noun and any calendar suffix: [قرن سوم هجری], [قرن بیستم], [اوایل قرن نوزدهم].
38. Brands, products, software and vehicle models are O: بنز, فتوشاپ, ویندوز, فایرفاکس. The company behind them is ORG when the sentence names the company ([شرکت مایکروسافت]), not when it names the product.
39. Deities, angels and mythological beings are O, extending rule 11: خدا, الله, یزدان, شیطان, ابلیس, جبرئیل. Prophets and imams named as people stay PER.
40. Religious denominations, theological and philosophical schools, and political movements are O, extending rule 5: شیعه (41 O), سنی (28), معتزله (5), اشاعره, صوفیه, مارکسیسم (4). A named organisation belonging to one is still ORG ([حزب توده]).

Changelog

v2, derived from adjudicating 500 annotated sentences against the silver layer (annotation/data/llm/ner-v1-default/pool-500.agreement.json):

• Rules 31–37 added. 31–34 close gaps that produced most of the real annotation errors under v1 (events tagged ORG, habituals tagged DAT, collective religious references tagged PER, ethnonyms tagged LOC). 35–37 decide cases where v1 was silent.
• Rules 18, 20 and 29 were already correct but were violated repeatedly, so each now names the exact forms that were mislabelled: غرب as "the West", bare شهرداری/فدراسیون/ مجلس/تیم ملی, and bare نوروز.
• Rules 1–17, 19, 21–28, 30 are unchanged from v1. Numbering is stable across versions.
• A first v2 draft over-corrected: it dropped [کلینیک نور] (ORG with a name, rule 20). Rules 25 and 29 were re-checked against train-split counts (این روزها 0/24 O, نوروز 30 O vs 3 DAT) and now state both directions explicitly.

v2.1, after annotating the full 1455-sentence test split and adjudicating every disagreement:

• Rule 33 is reverted and rewritten. v2 claimed a bare امام/حضرت denoting a specific person is PER, generalising from 11 instances of امام (. The base rate contradicts it: with no personal name following, امام is O 128 times against 12 PER and حضرت 81 against 3. That single rule caused 7 of the 19 real annotation errors left on the full split.
• Rules 38 (brands and products) and 39 (deities and mythological beings) added; they cover 5 more of those 19 errors (بنز, فتوشاپ, جاماسپ, شیطان, یزدان).

v2.2, after relabelling the first 2,000 train sentences (largely literary and memoir prose, a genre the test split barely contains):

• Rule 36 is reversed. v2.1 claimed دنیا behaves like جهان; the silver layer says the opposite, دنیا O 240 against 20 LOC while جهان is LOC 202 against 87 O.
• Rule 40 added: denominations, theological schools and political movements are O (شیعه 41 O, سنی 28, معتزله 5, مارکسیسم 4). معتزله tagged ORG was an error with no rule to prevent it.