  In this paper, we introduce a rule-based approach to annotate Locative and
Directional Expressions in Arabic natural language text. The annotation is
based on a constructed semantic map of the spatiality domain. Challenges are
twofold: first, we need to study how locative and directional expressions are
expressed linguistically in these texts; and second, we need to automatically
annotate the relevant textual segments accordingly. The research method we will
use in this article is analytic-descriptive. We will validate this approach on
specific novel rich with these expressions and show that it has very promising
results. We will be using NOOJ as a software tool to implement finite-state
transducers to annotate linguistic elements according to Locative and
Directional Expressions. In conclusion, NOOJ allowed us to write linguistic
rules for the automatic annotation in Arabic text of Locative and Directional
Expressions.
