Temporal representation and classification in Chinese

Temporal information is a significant semantic carrier in natural languages. In a broader sense, when we speak of the temporal information contained in sentences, we do not simply mean those explicit specifications, such as time clauses or phrases associated with the actions addressed. It also includes the information which is implicitly embedded in verbs. Thus, modelling of the temporal aspects of a language is more complicated than a physical time-dependent system. Over the past years, temporal information processing and extraction have received increasing attentions. Nevertheless, only a few researchers have investigated these areas in Chinese. The aim of this paper is to investigate both the explicit expressions and the inherent temporal properties of Chinese sentences. Furthermore, an algorithm to automatically classify a situation described by a sentence into three temporal categories, namely event, process and state, is proposed. This algorithm is the fundamental building block for effective Chinese temporal information processing.