[Attempto] combining sentences by temporal prepositions

[Norbert E. Fuchs]

On 7 Jul 2009, at 16:36, Marco Luca Sbodio wrote:

> I'm new to Attempto, and I hope not to make too obvious questions.

You are always welcome to ask questions.

> I've
> read part of the available documentation, and I've tried the on-line
> ACEEditor (which is very nice, btw). However, it is not clear to me
> if/how Attempto allows a user to combine sentence by temporal
> prepositions such as "before", "after", "while".
>
> Some examples:
>
> after X reads D, X sends D to Y
>
> before X sends D to Y, X must read D
>
> while X reads D, X can modify D
>
> As far as I unduerstood, ACE does not allow a user to express the  
> above
> sentences. Am I correct?

Yes, you are correct. Some time ago we considered implementing  
temporal operators but we never did.

> I found an old ACE Language Manual (Version 3.0, August 1999) [1], in
> which there is a section "Time, Events and States", saying that:
>
> [[
> A future version of ACE will allow users to combine sentences by
> temporal prepositions like before, after, and while.
> ]]

This was the time of our "considering" - 10 years ago.

> However, I cannot find evidence in the current documentation that this
> has happened. Can you tell me what is the status?

Currently, there are no temporal operators. One researcher used ACE  
for signal processing and expressed temporality by prepositional  
phrases, for instance "... at a time T." Combining this with  
constructs like "... > ..." you can simulate  before, after and while.

Best regards.

    --- nef