Generating models for temporal representations

TL;DR

This paper develops a theoretical and computational framework for temporal model building in semantics, using a first-order theory of time and events to capture semantic distinctions and generate meaningful models.

Contribution

It introduces a first-order theory of time and events and an algorithm to systematically generate semantically rich temporal models from minimal models.

Findings

The first-order theory captures key semantic distinctions.

The algorithm effectively produces non-minimal, semantically significant models.

Framework is applicable beyond Polish to other languages.

Abstract

We discuss the use of model building for temporal representations. We chose Polish to illustrate our discussion because it has an interesting aspectual system, but the points we wish to make are not language specific. Rather, our goal is to develop theoretical and computational tools for temporal model building tasks in computational semantics. To this end, we present a first-order theory of time and events which is rich enough to capture interesting semantic distinctions, and an algorithm which takes minimal models for first-order theories and systematically attempts to ``perturb'' their temporal component to provide non-minimal, but semantically significant, models.