The Language of Time A Reader [Paperback]

This reader collects and introduces important work in linguistics, computer science, artificial intelligence, and computational linguistics on the use of linguistic devices in natural languages to situate events in time: whether they are past, present, or future; whether they are real or hypothetical; when an event might have occurred, and how long it could have lasted. Clear, self-contained editorial introductions to each area provide the necessary technical background for the non-specialist, explaining the underlying connections across disciplines.

Part 1: Tense, Aspect, and Event Structure
1. Verbs and Times,Z. Vendler
2. The Syntax of Event Structure,James Pustejovsky
3. The Algebra of Events,Emmon Bach
4. The Tense of Verbs,Hans Reichenbach
5. Tense Logic and the Logic of Earlier and Later,A.N. Prior
6. Temporal Ontology and Temporal Reference,Marc Moens and Mark Steedman
7. Deriving Verbal and Compositional Lexical Aspect for NLP Applications,Bonnie J. Door and Mari Broman Olsen
8. A Computational Model of the Semantics of Tense and Aspect,Rebecca J. Passonneau
Part II: Temporal Reasoning
9. A Temporal Logic for Reasoning About Processes and Plans,Drew McDermot
10. A Logic-Based Calculus of Events,Robert Kowalski and Marek Sergot
11. Extending the Event Calculus with Temporal Granularity and Indeterminacy,Luca Chittaro and Carlo Combi
12. Towards a General Theory of Action and Time,James F. Allen
13. A Critical Examination of Allen's Theory of Action and Time,Antony Galton
14. Annotating and Reasoning About Time and Events,Jerry Hobbs and James Pustejovsky
Part III: Temporal Structure of Discourse
15. The Effects of Aspectual Class on the Temporal Structure of Discourse: Semantics or Pragmatics?,David R. Dowty
16. TemlÎ