Temporal ReasoningIntro to TimeML

cs112

October, 2004

TimeML: what it is

• Standard language for the mark-up of:– temporal expressions– events– temporal anchoring of events

(relations between events and temporal expressions)– temporal ordering of events

(relations between events and other events)

TimeML: goals

• Long term aim: provide the basic background for:– Temporal inference– QAS to be able to answer questions like:

• Is Gates currently CEO of Microsoft?• Were there any meetings between the hijackers and Iraq

before the WTC event?

– …

• Creation of a gold standard corpus with temporal expressions, events and basic temporal relations marked up.

An example

“Two Russians and a Frenchman left the Mir and endured a rough landing on the snow-covered plains of Central Asia on Thursday. The two Russians arrived on the Mir last August. Solovyou celebrated his 50th birthday during his six-month space voyage.”

An example

“Two Russians and a Frenchman left the Mir and endured a rough landing on the snow-covered plains of Central Asia on Thursday. The two Russians arrived on the Mir last August. Solovyou celebrated his 50th birthday during his six-month space voyage.”

What to annotate

• Time Expressions (timex)• Events• Signals• Links

We’ll mark them up with a set of attributes.

What to annotate: TIMEX3

What to annotate: TIMEX3

• Durations:– 4 hours, the whole week, half a year, …

• Calendar dates: (=points in time equal or bigger than a day)– Precise dates: March 16, 2003; two years ago today; yesterday;

– Vague dates: few days ago; ending of March;

– Week references: the 2nd week of January; several weeks later;

– Yearly quarters and halves: the 4th quarter; beginning last semester;

– Seasons: last Summer; Fall 1998;

– Year references: the 60s, 1920

– Decades, centuries and millenia: the last decade

• Times of Day: (=points in time smaller than a day)– Precise times: 7:30am; Tuesday, March 25 at 12:00pm; …

– Vague times: several minutes before

– Parts of day: Saturday afternoon, yesterday early in the morning

• Sets (reoccurring time expressions):– Two times a week, every day, …

Attributes for the tag TIMEX3

1. Timex ID (automatically assigned)

2. Type:– DATE, for expressions describing a calendar date:

the second of December, yesterday, the summer of 1971, Tuesday, ...

– TIME, for expressions describing a times of day:five minuts past eight; 7:30am; 9:00 am Friday, October 1, 1755;

– DURATION:2 months, 48 hours, all last night, three weeks.

– SET

3. Value: • ISO value for the time expression.

Feb 27, 1998 08:14 “1998-02-27T08:14:00”twelve weeks “P12W”

Attributes for the tag TIMEX3 (2)

4. Mod:

5. temporalFunction: binary attributeF: the timex provides all the info:

• Twelve o’clock January 3, 1969• Summer of 1964

T: the timex doesn’t contain all the info needed to locate it at a specific point of time (therefore, a temporal function needs to be applied):• eleven in the morning• yesterday• next year

6. anchorTimeID:– Use only when ‘temporalFunction’ attribute is set to TRUE– Refers to the temporal anchor for the “incomplete” timex.

Attributes for the tag TIMEX3 (3)

7. functionInDocument: – CREATION TIME– MODIFICATION TIME– PUBLICATION TIME– RELEASE TIME– RECEPTION TIME– NONE

• At most, once per document• Generally ‘CREATION TIME’

Attributes for the tag TIMEX3 (4)

Example of annotated TIMEXs

Mary left on Thursday and John arrived the day after.

Mary left on<TIMEX3 tid="t1" type="DATE” value="1998-WXX-4"

temporalFunction="true” anchorTimeID="t0">Thursday </TIMEX3>and John arrived <TIMEX3 tid="t2" type="DATE” value="1998-WXX-5"

temporalFunction="true” anchorTimeID="t1">the day</TIMEX3>after

TERQAS Workshop will resume Monday, July 15. The session will start at 9:00 a.m.

TERQAS Workshop will resume<TIMEX3 tid="t1" type="DATE" value="2002-07-15”temporalFunction="true" anchorTimeID="t0">Monday, July 15</TIMEX3>. The session will start at<TIMEX3 tid="t2" type="TIME" value=" 2002-07-15

T9:00" temporalFunction="true" anchorTimeID="t1">

9:00 a.m.</TIMEX3>

Example of annotated TIMEXs

What to annotate: EVENTs

What to annotate: EVENTs• Tensed Verbs:

A fresh flow of lava, gas and debris erupted there Saturday.

• Untensed verbs:Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the prime minister of the Netherlands to thank him for thousands of gas masks his country has already contributed.

• Nominalizations:Israel will ask the US to delay a military strike against Iraq until the Jewish state is fully prepared for a possible Iraqi attack.

• Adjectives:A Philippine volcano, dormant for six centuries, began exploding with searing gases, thick ash and deadly debris.

• Prepositional phrases:All 75 people on board the Aeroflot Airbus died.

• Predicative Clauses: "There is no reason why we would not be prepared," Mordechai told the Yediot Ahronot daily.

Attributes for the tag EVENT

1. Event ID: (automatically assigned)

2. Class:– REPORTING: say, report, announce, …– PERCEPTION: see, hear, watch, feel.– ASPECTUAL: begin, start, finish, stop, continue.– I_ACTION: attempt, try, promise, offer, regret,…– I_STATE: believe, want, wish,…– STATE: be on board, kidnapped, recovering, love, ..– OCCURRENCE: die, crash, build, merge, sell, take advantage of, ..

Example of annotated EVENTs

Israel may ask the United States to delay a military strike against Iraq until the Jewish state is fully prepared for a possible Iraqi attack.

Israel may

<EVENT eid="e1" class="I_ACTION”>

ask </EVENT>

the United States not to

<EVENT eid="e2" class="I_ACTION”>

delay </EVENT>

a military

<EVENT eid="e3" class="OCCURRENCE”>

strike </EVENT>

against Iraq until the Jewish state is fully

<EVENT eid="e4" class="I_STATE”>

prepared </EVENT>

for a possible Iraqi

<EVENT eid="e5" class="OCCURRENCE”>

attack </EVENT>

What to annotate: MAKEINSTANCEs

Attributes for MAKEINSTANCE

1. Event Instance ID: (automatically assigned)

2. Event ID: (automatically assigned)

3. Tense: (only pertinent for verbs)– PAST: John decided/had decided not to go.– PRESENT: John decides/has decided not to go.– FUTURE: John will decide/will have decided not to go.– NONE: John decided not to go / John’s

decision ...

4. Aspect: (only pertinent for verbs)– PROGRESSIVE: [BE + -ing] John is/was/will be eating

– PERFECTIVE: [HAVE + Ppart] John has/had/will have eaten

– PERFECTIVE_PROGRESSIVE: John has/had been eating

– NONE: John eats/ate/will eat

5. nf_morph:– NOUN: John’s decision was not to go.

– ADJECTIVE: Sue was ashamed of John’s decision.

– INFINITIVE: John decided not to go.– PRESPART: While playing, John broke his leg.

– PASTPART: Steel plates found at the scene are being analyzed by experts.

6. Polarity:– POS: no negation present John went.– NEG: negation present John did not go.

7. Modality• Modal Auxiliars like: could, can, might, may, must, should,…

8. Signal_ID --see the guidelines

9. Cardinality --see the guidelines

Attributes for MAKEINSTANCE

Example of annotated MIs

Israel may ask the United States to delay a military strike against Iraq…

Israel may

<EVENT eid="e1" class="I_ACTION”> ask </EVENT>

<MI eiid=“ei1” eid=“e1” tense=“NONE” aspect=“NONE” nf_morph=“NONE” modality=“may”/>

the United States to

<EVENT eid="e2" class="I_ACTION”> delay </EVENT>

<MI eiid=“ei2” eid=“e2” tense=“NONE” aspect=“NONE” nf_morph=“INFINITIVE”/>

a military

<EVENT eid="e3" class="OCCURRENCE"> strike </EVENT>

<MI eiid=“ei3” eid=“e3” tense=“NONE” aspect=“NONE” nf_morph=“NOUN”/>

What to annotate: SIGNALs

What to annotate: SIGNALs

• Temporal prepositions:on, in, at, from, to, before, after, during,

etc.

• Temporal conjunctions: before, after, while, when, etc.

• Temporal modifiers: (only when modifying events)

twice, every, three times, etc.

• Special characters: - and /, in temporal expressions denoting

ranges (September, 4-6, Apr. 1999/Jul. 1999, etc.).

Attributes for the tag SIGNAL

1. Signal ID: automatically assigned

(they are very boring!)

Example of annotated SIGNALs

• Temporal Prepositions, Conjunctions and Modifiers:

John taught <SIGNAL sid="s1">on</SIGNAL> Monday

All passengers died <SIGNAL sid="s1">when</SIGNAL> the plane crashed into the mountain.

What to annotate: LINKs

What to annotate: LINKs• Temporal: TLINK

It represents the temporal relationship holding between events or between an event and a timex:

Mary arrived in Boston last Thursday.

• Aspectual: ALINKIt represent the relationship between an aspectual event and its argument event.

She finished assembling the table.

• Subordination: SLINKIt is used for contexts introducing relations between an I-ACTION/I-STATE event and its event argument, or an event and a negation or modal :

She tried to buy some wine.

relType: the attribute for TLINK• Simultaneous: (only for pairs of events)

Mary was watching TV while John was frying the eggs.

• Before/After:Mary had decided not to help him. (wrt ‘watching’ or ‘frying’ in the previous sentence).

• Immediately before/Immediately after:One of the eggs crashed as soon as it touched the pan.

• Including/Being included: Mary arrived in Boston last Thursday.

• During: (states or events that persist through a duration)John fried eggs for 20 minutes on Monday.

• Beginning/Begun by:John fried eggs from 6:00pm to 6:20pm.

• Ending/Ended by:John fried eggs from 6:00pm to 6:20pm.

• Identity: (only for pairs of events)Mary was resting for a while. After her rest, she took a bath.

relType: the attribute for SLINK

• Modal, introduced mainly by:– I_States : Mary wanted John to buy some wine.– I_Actions: John tried to get ticket for the final.

• Factive, for I-events introducing some presupposition:John forgot he was in Boston last

year.

• Counter-factive, for I-events introducing a presupposition about the non-veracity of its argument:– forget (to), prevent, cancel, avoid, decline, etc.

• Evidential, mainly introduced by Reporting and Perception events:– say, report, see, hear, ..

• Negative Evidential, introduced by Reporting events that convey negative polarity:

John denied he bought only beer.

relType: the attribute for ALINK

• Initiation:John started to read.

• Culmination:John finished assembling the table.

• Termination:John stopped talking.

• Continuation:John kept talking.

Final remark

Please, read the Annotation Guidelines!