PTPARL-D: an annotated corpus of forty-four years of Portuguese parliamentary debates

Abstract

In a representative democracy, some decide in the name of the rest. These elected officials are commonly gathered in public assemblies, such as parliaments, where they discuss policies, legislate, and vote on fundamental initiatives. A core aspect of such democratic processes are the plenary debates, where important public discussions take place. Many parliaments around the world are increasingly keeping the transcripts of such debates and other parliamentary data in digital formats that are accessible to the public. This is meant to increase transparency and accountability, but these records are often only provided as raw text or even as images, with little, if any, annotation and in inconsistent formats, making them difficult to analyse. Here, we present ptarl-d, an annotated corpus of debates in the Portuguese Parliament, covering the years 1976 to 2019 and representing the entire period of Portuguese democracy.