[2603.05171] Guidelines for the Annotation and Visualization of Legal Argumentation Structures in Chinese Judicial Decisions

Computer Science > Computation and Language arXiv:2603.05171 (cs) [Submitted on 5 Mar 2026] Title:Guidelines for the Annotation and Visualization of Legal Argumentation Structures in Chinese Judicial Decisions Authors:Kun Chen, Xianglei Liao, Kaixue Fei, Yi Xing, Xinrui Li View a PDF of the paper titled Guidelines for the Annotation and Visualization of Legal Argumentation Structures in Chinese Judicial Decisions, by Kun Chen and 4 other authors View PDF Abstract:This guideline proposes a systematic and operational annotation framework for representing the structure of legal argumentation in judicial decisions. Grounded in theories of legal reasoning and argumentation, the framework aims to reveal the logical organization of judicial reasoning and to provide a reliable data foundation for computational analysis. At the proposition level, the guideline distinguishes four types of propositions: general normative propositions, specific normative propositions, general factual propositions, and specific factual propositions. At the relational level, five types of relations are defined to capture argumentative structures: support, attack, joint, match, and identity. These relations represent positive and negative argumentative connections, conjunctive reasoning structures, the correspondence between legal norms and case facts, and semantic equivalence between propositions. The guideline further specifies formal representation rules and visualization conventions for both basic an...