Multiple bodies v. multiple annotations: annotating a base annotation

Just want to clarify the model I was describing (on the call).

Instead of multiple bodies in an annotation, submit each body in a separate annotation, but first, submit a base annotation (with no body) and then all those "separate" annotations annotate the base annotation.

The complication cited was that this base annotation would be some sort of special type of annotation and that there would have to be some way to designate it as such.  But I don't think it's any more complicated than just assigning it the motivation "baseAnnotation" (or come up with some gerund/verb form of that).

Ray