There exist formal accounts of tense and aspect, such as that detailed by Reichenbach (1947). Temporal semantics for corpus annotation are also available, such as TimeML. This paper describes a technique for linking the two, in order to perform a corpus-based empirical validation of Reichenbach’s tense framework. It is found, via use of Freksa’s semi-interval temporal algebra, that tense approp...

German verbal inflection is frequently wrong in standard statistical machine translation approaches. German verbs agree with subjects in person and number, and they bear information about mood and tense. For subject–verb agreement, we parse German MT output to identify subject–verb pairs and ensure that the verb agrees with the subject. We show that this approach improves subject-verb agreement...

Generating language that reeects the temporal organization of represented knowledge requires a language generation model that integrates contemporary theories of tense and aspect, temporal representations, and methods to plan text. This paper presents a model that produces event combinations and appropriate connecting words to relate them. We distinguish between inherent and non-inherent aspect...

This paper proposes a two-level model that integrates tense and aspect information, based on theories by both Hornstein (in the spirit of Reichenbach) and Allen, with lexicai-semantic information based on an extended version of $ackendoff's theory that includes a verb classification system proposed by Dowty and Vendler. The model is intended to be extensible to realms outside of the temporal do...

This paper proposes a two-level model that integrates tense and aspect information, based on theories by both Hornstein (in the spirit of Reichenbach) and Allen, with lexicai-semantic information based on an extended version of $ackendoff's theory that includes a verb classification system proposed by Dowty and Vendler. The model is intended to be extensible to realms outside of the temporal do...

This paper investigates how linguistic expressions of time, in particular temporal adverbs and verb tense morphemes, are used to establish temporal reference at the level of brain physiology. First, a formal semantic analysis of tense and temporal adverbs is outlined. It is argued that computing temporal reference amounts to solving a constraint satisfaction problem. Next, the results of an eve...

Several recent works on modals and tense argue that epistemic modals and similar types of predicates are deprived of temporal properties. This article takes a different stand. Although epistemic modals typically express what may be dubbed “unchanging truths”, there exist examples to demonstrate that these types of predicates are still able to express a shift in temporal reference. This being th...

There are two ways of incorporating temporal distinctions into a system of logic: tensed theories propose to expand standard logic with intensional tense operators; tenseless theories try to make do with the resources of extensional first-order logic, by using quantification over suitably chosen temporal entities, such as metaphysically basic time points or temporal parts. My concern in this pa...

This dissertation is about the structure of temporal semantics and children’s acquisition of temporal language. It argues for the importance of investigating semantics both at the abstract level of linguistic structures and at the concrete level of the time-course of acquisition, as these two levels provide natural constraints for each other. With respect to semantics, it provides a computation...

The relationship between children's language acquisition and their nonverbal intelligence has a long tradition of scientific inquiry. Current attention focuses on the use of nonverballQ level as an exclusionary criterion in the definition of specific language impairment (SU).Grammatical tense deficits are known as a clinical marker of SU, but the relationship with nonverbal intelligence below t...