Skip to main content

Interpreting tense, aspect and time adverbials: A compositional, unified approach

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Temporal Logic (ICTL 1994)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 827))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

We extend our theory of English tense, aspect and time adverbials [Hwang and Schubert, 1992, 1993] to deal with a wider range of time adverbials, including many adverbials of frequency, cardinality, duration, and time span, and adverbials of temporal relation involving subordinating conjunctions such as after, since, and until. Our theory is fully formal in that it derives indexical (quasi-)logical forms from syntactic-semantic rule pairs of a formal grammar, and nonindexical logical forms via deindexing rules in the form of equivalences and equations. The grammar allows for complex sentences and the semantic rules and deindexing rules are easy to implement computationally, producing formulas in Episodic Logic.

Portions of this paper were presented at the DARPA Workshop on Speech and Natural Language, 1990, the 30th Annual Meeting of the ACL, 1992, and the ARPA Workshop on Human Language Technology, 1993. This research was supported in part by NSF Research Grant IRI-9013160 and ONR/ARPA Research Contracts No. N00014-82-K-0193 and No. N00014-92-J-1512.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • [Allen and Schubert, 1991] Allen, J. and Schubert, L. K. The Trains Project. Technical Report 382, Dept. of Comp. Sci., U. of Rochester, Rochester, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Allen, 1987] Allen, J. F. Natural Language Understanding. Benjamin/Cummings, Reading, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Barwise, 1989] Barwise, J. The Situation in Logic. CSLI, Stanford, CA.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Dowty, 1982] Dowty, D. Tense, time adverbs and compositional semantic theory. Linguistics and Philosophy 5:23–55.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Dowty, 1986] Dowty, D. The effect of aspectual classes on the temporal structure of discourse: semantics or pragmatics? Linguistics and Philosophy 9(1):37–61.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Hinrichs, 1986] Hinrichs, E. Temporal anaphora in discourses of English. Linguistics and Philosophy 9(1):63–82.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Hinrichs, 1988] Hinrichs, E. W. Tense, quantifiers, and contexts. Computational Linguistics 14(2):3–14.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Hornstein, 1977] Hornstein, N. Towards a theory of tense. Linguistic Inquiry 3:521–557.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Hwang and Schubert, 1992] Hwang, C. H. and Schubert, L. K. Tense trees as the ‘fine structure’ of discourse. In Proc. 30th Annual Meeting of the ACL. Newark, DE. 232–240.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Hwang and Schubert, 1993] Hwang, C. H. and Schubert, L. K. Episodic Logic: A situational logic for natural language processing. In Aczel, P.; Israel, D.; Katagiri, Y.; and Peters, S., editors, Situation Theory and its Applications, V. 3, CSLI, Stanford, CA. 303–338.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Hwang, 1992] Hwang, C. H. A Logical Approach to Narrative Understanding. Ph.D. Dissertation, U. of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Kamp and Reyle, 1993] Kamp, H. and Reyle, U. From Discourse to Logic. Kluwer, Dordrecht, Holland.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Lascarides and Asher, 1993] Lascarides, A. and Asher, N., Temporal interpretation, discourse relations and common sense entailment. Linguistics and Philosophy 16:437–493.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Leech, 1987] Leech, G. Meaning and the English Verb (2nd ed). Longman, London, UK.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Mittwoch, 1988] Mittwoch, A. Aspects of English aspect: On the interaction of perfect, progressive and durational phrases. Linguistics and Philosophy 11:203–254.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Moens and Steedman, 1988] Moens, M. and Steedman, M., Temporal ontology and temporal reference. Computational Linguistics 14(2): 15–28.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Moltmann, 1991] Moltmann, F. Measure adverbials. Linguistics and Philosophy 14:629–660.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Mourelatos, 1981] Mourelatos, A. P. D. Events, processes and states. In Tedeschi, P. J. and Zaenen, A., editors, Tense and Aspect (Syntax and Semantics, V.14). Academic Press, New York, NY. 191–212.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Partee, 1984] Partee, B. Nominal and temporal anaphora. Linguistics and Philosophy 7:243–286.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Passonneau, 1988] Passonneau, R. J. A computational model of the semantics of tense and aspect. Computational Linguistics 14(2):44–60.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Prior, 1967] Prior, A. Past, Present and Future. Clarendon Press, Oxford, UK.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Reichenbach, 1947] Reichenbach, H. Elements of Symbolic Logic. Macmillan, New York, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Richards and Heny, 1982] Richards, B. and Heny, F., Tense, aspect, and time adverbials. Linguistics and Philosophy 5:59–154.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Schubert and Hwang, 1990] Schubert, L. K. and Hwang, C. H. Picking reference events from tense trees: A formal, implementable theory of English tense-aspect semantics. In Proc. Speech and Natural Language, DARPA Workshop, Hidden Valley, PA. 34–41.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Smith, 1978] Smith, C. The syntax and interpretations of temporal expressions in English. Linguistics and Philosophy 2:43–99.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Smith, 1991] Smith, C. The Parameter of Aspect. Kluwer, Dordrecht, Holland.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Song and Cohen, 1991] Song, F. and Cohen, R. Tense interpretation in the context of narrative. In Proc. AAAI-91. Anaheim, CA. 131–136.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Steedman, 1982] Steedman, M. J. Reference to past time. In Speech, Place and Action. John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY. 125–157.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Stump, 1981] Stump, G. T. The interpretation of frequency adjectives. Linguistics and Philosophy 4:221–257.

    Google Scholar 

  • [van Benthem, 1988] van Benthem, J. A Manual of Intensional Logic. CSLI, Stanford, CA.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Vendler, 1967] Vendler, Z. Linguistics in Philosophy, Chapter 4: Verbs and Times. Cornell U. Press, Ithaca, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Webber, 1988] Webber, B. L. Tense as discourse anaphor. Computational Linguistics 14(2):61–73.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Dov M. Gabbay Hans Jürgen Ohlbach

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 1994 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Hwang, C.H., Schubert, L.K. (1994). Interpreting tense, aspect and time adverbials: A compositional, unified approach. In: Gabbay, D.M., Ohlbach, H.J. (eds) Temporal Logic. ICTL 1994. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 827. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0013992

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0013992

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-58241-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-48585-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics