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(nian2, year) and 月 (yue4, month) are two
time-quantifiers, time order words, for example, 前
(qian2, preceding), and part-of time words, for
instance, 初(chu1, beginning) in Chinese. Semantic
of time phrases is illustrated by temporal information
structures of HowNet (short for TIS) intensively, for
example:
(1) 昨天-上午(zuo2 tian1 shang4 wu3, yesterday
morning)
TIS=(时间|time,特|special,日|day) [whole]
( 时间|time, 特 |special, 晨 / 午 / 晚
|morning/afternoon/night)
(2) 会-前(hui4 qian2, before the meeting)
TIS=(事情|things) [time] (时间|time)
In (1) it describes the morning in yesterday,
concept yesterday is the whole of concept morning.
Example (2) is about the time before the time when
the meeting is began. According to the meaning of
time phrases, we category temporal information
structures of HowNet and time phrases into three
kinds, date, presudodate and time interval.
2.1 Date
Date is the numbers or words used to talk about a
particular day, month, and year. It has the definite
value on the axis of time. The formation of the time
phrase expressing the date in Chinese is shown as
follows:
Date::= [<Time-unit>]* (1)
Time-unit::= <time-num><time-quantifier> (2)
The time-quantifiers of the dates include 世纪
(shi4 ji4, century), 年(nian2, year), 季(ji4, season),
月(yue4, month), 旬(xun2, ten days), 周(zhou1,
week), 日(ri4, day), 日段(ri4 duan4, part of a day),
时(shi2, hour), 分钟(fen1 zhong1, minute) and 秒
钟 (miao3 zhong1, second) (Dong 1999). The
time-unit that composed of the former
time-quantifier is larger than the time-unit composed
of the latter time-quantifier. Moreover, 季 has 4
values: 春(chun1, spring), 夏(xia4, summer), 秋
(qiu1, autumn) and 冬(dong1, winter), which have
the precedence relation. And 日段 also has 4 values:
晨(chen2, morning), 午间(wu3 jian1, noon), 下午
(xia4 wu3, afternoon) and 晚(wan3, night), which
also have precedence relation. Finally, every
time-unit of the dates could be divided into three
parts again, which are the beginning part, the middle
part and the ending part, and there is precedence
relation between these parts.
The dates have two properties in the Chinese text.
One is that the dates often only contain the larger
time-unit when it isn’t necessary to point out the
detail time. The other is that the dates often have the
temporal references in the Chinese text. The larger
time-unit of the date would be omitted when it is
same as the larger time-unit of the date in the above
sentences.
2.2 Presudodate
Presudodate is composed of a based-date and an
offset, in which the based-date is a date, and the
offset consists of direction and size. Because the
offset and the based-date of the presudodate are
often indefinite, the presudodate hasn’t definite
value on the axis of time. However, the presudodate
could be transformed to the date when the base-date
and the offset are given. Presudodate is defined as
follows:
Presudodate ::= <Based-date><Offset> (3)
Offset ::= <Offset-dir><Offset-size> (4)
Date=Presudodate.Based-date + Presudodate.Offset
(5)
Expression (5) shows the process of transforming
the presudodate to the date. When the direction of
the offset is same as the direction of the axis of time
(the flow of time), the size of the offset is positive.
Well, the size of the offset will be negative when the
direction of the offset is opposite to the direction of
the axis of time. And when the size of the offset is
zero, it implies that the presudodate denotes the
based-date, or the larger time-unit of the presudodate
and that of the based-date are same, for example,
今
天
(jin1 tian1, today),
今天下午
(jin1 tian1 xia4 wu3,
this afternoon).
Time phrases expressing the presudodates have 4
forms generally in the Chinese text:
(1) Have the based-date and the offset direction. For
example, 2008
年
6
月
1
日前
(er4 ling2 ling2 ba1
nian2 liu4 yue4 yi1 ri4 qian2, before June 1st
2008). This kind of presudodate could be
transformed to the date with formula (5) after
receiving the size of the offset.
(2) Have the offset including the direction and the
size, and take the latest date in the above
sentences as its based-date. For example,
“1999
年,…。两年后,…。”
(yi1 jiu3 jiu3 jiu3
nian2, …liang2 nian2 hou4,…,… in 1999. …
two years later …).
(3) Have the offset, and take the date that the event
happened as its based-date. For example,
“第二
次世界大战以后”
(di4 er4 ci1 shi4 jie4 da4
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