An Annotated Multilingual Dataset to Study Modality in the Gospels

This paper presents a number of resources for examining the expression of modality in the Gospels. The main resource is an XML-TEI dataset that contains the linguistic annotation of a predefined list of potentially modal markers in both Ancient Greek and Latin. When one of these markers conveys a modal meaning, each constituent of the modal passage (i.e., the marker, its scope, and the modal relation between them) is annotated with a great level of detail through several linguistic features. One of the original features of our dataset is the implementation of a cross-referencing system that enables the alignment of the potentially modal markers of both languages. To facilitate the exploitation of our data by those unfamiliar with XML technologies, we also provide summary tables with the most relevant features of the annotation. In addition, a program written in Apache Ant allows any user to generate the summary sheets and to align modal passages in both Ancient Greek and Latin with any other language available in the Multilingual Bible Parallel Corpus [Christodouloupoulos and Steedman 2015]. This contribution presents the details of the semantic annotation and its formalization, and how our resources may be exploited within semantics and translation studies. In addition, the encoding strategies implemented are relevant for other projects dealing with the combination of multiple layers of (linguistic) annotation and/or tackling the development of parallel corpora.