An annotation is generally referred to as an annotation. In particular, there are comments attached to a (literary) text, which are not essential to the main text or key word, but which nevertheless appear to be relevant to the latter by adding additional information. Such annotations are usually added as a footnote and are thus an addition to a section or word at the bottom of the page. They are also partly enclosed in the form of the gloss. They may include information, excerpts, word translations and the like. In books and libraries, the term means a concise description or characterization of a text that serves as a guide for the user. In linguistics, an annotation means describing a syntactic structure, in which annotations are used in programming languages to add additional information to the source text which is ignored by the processing software but simplify the understanding of the program for the programmer.
The term is derived from the Latin noun annotatio, which can be translated with a written remark and goes back to the noun nota. Nota is generally referred to as a note. Consequently, the translation of the word already refers to the meaning of a (written) reference or comment [supplement the main text or main hypothesis]. Example annotations in a (literary) text
Annotation in linguistics
In linguistics, the term is used to refer to analytical or descriptive annotations within a text. Here the individual words of a sentence or even text are annotated. Consider, for example, the following theorem:
The book is in the closet.
If the above example were now provided with linguistic annotations, the individual components of the above sentence would be provided with annotations describing them precisely and thus providing additional information. In practice this would look like this:
“(Annotation: noun, neuter, singular, nominative) (Annotation: finites verb, present, 3rd person singular, indicative, basic form stand) in (annotation: preposition (annotation: nouns, masculine, singular, dative). “(cf. words, case, case, genus, number)
Annotation in books and libraries
Anyone looking for works in the catalog of a library finds very often concise as well as factual summaries of the individual search results. These help to assess the relevance of the hit and thus to be able to better select which work is appropriate for the respective research and which meets the requirements as well as the intention. In the bibliographical section, such an annotation is also called a subtitle. Let’s take an example:
Annotation in the library
The above example shows one of the results which the search for the poet Friedrich Schiller in the online library catalog of the University of Tübingen has brought to light. The title page contains general information about the work, such as the authors, the location, as well as information about the scope and the year of publication. A brief and factual summary of the work can be found under the tab Details on the content. This is called annotation – in the example as an abstract.
Annotations in programming languages
Programming languages are formal languages that consist of formulations that can be executed by a computer. The sequence of the individual commands solves tasks. The sum of all the statements that follow in this process is referred to as source code, which is converted by the computer into the machine language and is ultimately executed.
Annotations are important in order to leave comments in the source text, which are not considered by the computer but which simplify the understanding of the text or help to structure the source text. A simple example:
// this comment is not interpreted
class class {
void method ();
}
The above example illustrates the basic principle: lines 2 to 4 would be executed within a corresponding program. The annotation, which is in the first line, is initiated by //, which in the example above would make it ignore by the computer. However, it could give hints as to what happens in the next section.
Short overview: The most important overview
An annotation is generally referred to as an annotation. In particular, comments are intended which are attached to a (literary)