Systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable media are disclosed for generating generate explanatory paths for column annotations determined using a knowledge graph and a deep representation learning model. For instance, the disclosed systems can utilize a knowledge graph to generate an explanatory path for a column label determination from a deep representation learning model. For example, the disclosed systems can identify a column and determine a label for the column using a knowledge graph (e.g., a representation of a knowledge graph) that includes encodings of columns, column features, relational edges, and candidate labels. Then, the disclosed systems can determine a set of candidate paths between the column and the determined label for the column within the knowledge graph. Moreover, the disclosed systems can generate an explanatory path by ranking and selecting paths from the set of candidate paths using a greedy ranking and/or diversified ranking approach.