Ups and downs in the theory of temporal reference

Semantics and contextual expression, 1989

Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, 1996

Computational Linguistics, 1988

Two weeks later, Bonadea had already been his lover for a fortnight."-Robert Musil, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften. A semantics of temporal categories in language and a theory of their use in defining the temporal relations between events both require a more complex structure on the domain underlying the meaning representations than is commonly assumed. This paper proposes an ontology based on such notions as causation and consequence, rather than on purely temporal primitives. A central notion in the ontology is that of an elementary event-complex called a "nucleus." A nucleus can be thought of as an association of a goal event, or "culmination," with a "preparatory process" by which it is accomplished, and a "consequent state," which ensues. Natural-language categories like aspects, futurates, adverbials, and when-clauses are argued to change the temporal/aspectual category of propositions under the control of such a nucleic knowledge representation structure. The same concept of a nucleus plays a central role in a theory of temporal reference, and of the semantics of tense, which we follow McCawley, Partee, and Isard in regarding as an anaphoric category. We claim that any manageable formalism for naturallanguage temporal descriptions will have to embody such an ontology, as will any usable temporal database for knowledge about events which is to be interrogated using natural language. To map the temporal relations expressed in these examples onto linear time, and to try to express the semantics of when in terms of points or intervals (possibly associated with events), would appear to imply either that when is multiply ambiguous, allowing these points or intervals to be temporally related in at least three different ways, or that the relation expressed

1997

ftp site: ftp.unive.it Contents p. 1 Abstract " 1 1. Introduction " 2 2. Interpreting Temporal Locations " 2 2.1 Conceptual Representations " 2 3. Aspect and the TD feature " 4 4. Quantifiers and Interpretation " 6 5. Global vs Internal: two features for event structure " 8 6. Factuality and the Structure of events " 11 7. Event structure and Quantification " 14 8. Quantifier Raising " 18 8.1 Uniqueness and Genericity " 21 9. The algorithm for temporal interpretation " 23 9.1 Tense and Aspect: two separate relations with Time Reference " 25 9.2 Implementing Allen's algorithm " 27 9.3 Semantic representations " 29 10. References " 31 11 Acknowledgements " 32

Minds and Machines, 1997

Proceedings of the 14th conference on Computational linguistics -, 1992

A proposal to deal with tenses in the framework of Discourse Representation Theory is presented, ms it has been implemented for a fragment at the IMS for the project LILOG. It is based on the theory of tenses of H. Kamp and Ch. Rohrer. The system uses tile tense and aspect information, the information about the temporal discourse structure of tile preceding text stored in a specific list of possible reference times, and background knowledge. These types of information interact in order to choose a suited temporal anchor for the event of a new sentence. With respect to extended texts, choosing the right reference time for a new event is a problem which has been largely neglected in the literature.

Gragoatá

This paper investigates the grammatical strategies deployed by natural languages in order to express temporal reference. We show that temporal reference is obtained by combining a finite set of pieces of meaning which are constrained by the metaphysics of natural language and which languages distribute differently across functional categories. The paper discusses more specifically temporal adverbial clauses that express the meanings of anteriority and posteriority with respect to some reference time. We consider a relevant set of languages that make use of different strategies in order to generate these meanings, and conclude that the tools that languages may deploy are of a limited number, and include tense, aspect and temporal connectives.

2000

Combining ideas from Donald Davidson, Hans Reichenbach and Discourse Representation Theory (DRT), I will develop a constraint-based semantics for the Dutch tenses and temporal auxiliaries which is fully integrated in the HPSG framework. The semantics will be inspired to a large extent by DRT, but the syntax is squarely based on the lexicialist surface-oriented approach of HPSG, and so is the treatment of the relation between syntax and semantics. Instead of DRT's construction rules which map syntactic structures onto discourse representation structures, I will use lexically anchored constraints on the relation between syntactic, semantic and pragmatic properties of signs. Since the constraints which I will use are monotonic, the resulting treatment is non-directional, in contrast to DRT's construction rules, which are unidirectional (from syntax to semantics) and irreversible. Next to this technical advantage, there is also a conceptual one: since the construction rules of DRT have the unlimited power which was once characteristic of transformations in the Standard Theory, they allow for such a broad range of stipulations and arbitrarily complex conditions that the linguist is not encouraged to strive for maximum transparency in the formulation of relations between syntax and semantics/pragmatics. The constraint-based approach, on the other hand, imposes a much tighter discipline on the formulation of such relations, and thus enhances the possibility of arriving at computationally viable analyses.

Journal of Linguistics, 2001

This article explores the interface between the syntactic and semantic representation of natural language with respect to the interpretation of time. The main claim of the paper is that the semantic relationship of temporal dependency requires syntactic locality at LF. Based on this claim, I explore the syntax and semantics of gerundive relative clauses. I argue that since gerundive relatives are temporally dependent on the tense of the main clause, they need to be local with a temporal element of the main clause at LF. I show that gerundive relatives receive different temporal interpretations depending on their syntactic position at LF. This analysis sheds light on the behavior of gerundive relatives in constructions involving coordination, existential there, scope of quantificational and cardinality adverbials, extraposition, presuppositionality effects and binding-theoretic reconstruction effects.

The annotation of temporal relations remains a challenge, being a very difficult task for humans, not to mention machines, to reliably and consistently annotate temporal relations in natural language texts. This paper advocates a change in the definition of the problem itself, by proposing a staged divide-and-conquer approach guided by syntax, that offers a more principled way of selecting temporal entities involved in a temporal relation. The decomposition of the problem into smaller syntactically motivated tasks, and the identification of accurate and linguistically grounded solutions to solve them, promote a sound understanding of the phenomena involved in establishing temporal relations. We illustrate the potential of linguistically informed solutions in the area of temporal relation identification by proposing and evaluating an initial set of syntactically motivated tasks. RÉSUMÉ. L'annotation de relations temporelles demeure encore aujourd'hui un défi : annoter manuellement de façon fiable et cohérente les relations temporelles dans des textes reste difficile et l'est bien plus encore lorsqu'il s'agit d'annotation automatique. Cet article préconise un changement dans la définition du problème en proposant une approche qui, en s'appuyant sur la syntaxe et sur une stratégie de type « diviser pour conquérir », offre une manière plus élaborée de sélectionner les entités impliquées dans une relation temporelle. La décomposition du problème en de plus petites questions se concentrant sur la syntaxe et l'identification de solutions précises et linguistiquement fondées pour les résoudre favorisent une meilleure compréhension des phénomènes impliqués dans l'établissement de relations temporelles. Nous illustrons le potentiel des solutions linguistiquement fondées dans le cadre de l'identification de relations temporelles en proposant et évaluant une première série de tâches se concentrant sur la syntaxe.