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<Paper uid="P87-1001">
  <Title>TEMPORAL ONTOLOGY IN NATURAL LANGUAGE</Title>
  <Section position="3" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="intro">
    <SectionTitle>
1. Introduction
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> It has usually been assumed that the semantics of temporal expressions is directly related to the linear dimensional concaption of time familiar from high-school physics - that is, to a model based on the number-line. However, there are good reasons for suspecting that such a conception is not the one that our linguistic categories are most directly related to.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> When-clauses provide an example of the mismatch between linguistic temporal categories and a semantics based on such an assumption. Consider the following examples:  (1) When they built the 39th Street bridge...</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> (a) ...a local architect drew up the plans.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> Co) ...they used the best materials.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> (c) ...they solved most of their traffic problems.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="5">  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 (poss~ly 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 between main and when-clauses is one of &amp;quot;approximate coincidence&amp;quot;. However, neither of these tactics explains the peculiarity of utterances like the following: (2) #When my car broke down, the sun set.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="6"> The oddity of this statement seems to arise because the when-clause predicates something more than mere temporal coincidence, that is, some contingent relation such as a causa/link between the two events. Of course, our knowledge of the world does not easily support such a link. This aspect of the sentence's meaning must stem from the sense-meaning of when, because parallel utterances using just after, at approxi. mate/y the same t/me as, and the like, which predicate purely temporal coincidence, are perfectly felicitous.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="7"> We shall claim that the different temporal relations conveyed in examples (1)do not arise from any sense-ambiguity of when, or from any &amp;quot;fuzziness&amp;quot; in the relation that it expresses between the times refered to in the clauses it conjoins, but from the fact that the meaning of when is not primarily temporal at an. We shall argue that when has single sense-meaning reflecting its role of establishing a temporal focus. The apparent diversity of meanings arises from the nature of this referent and the organisation of events and states of affairs in episodic memory under a relation we shall call &amp;quot;contingency&amp;quot;, a term related to such notions as causality, rather than temporal sequenfiality. This contingent, non-temporal relation also determines the ontology of the elementary propositions denoting events and states of wl~ch episodic memory is composed, and it is to these that we turn first.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
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