Steedman’s Temporality Proposal and Finite Automata

Abstract

The proposal from Steedman 2005 that “the formal devices” required for temporality in linguistic semantics “are those related to representation of causality and goal-directed action” is developed using finite automata, implicit in which are notions of causality (labelled transitions) and goal-directed action (final/accepting states). Three strands in theories of aspect isolated in Binnick 2006 are examined: temporal relations, phases, and boundedness. The commonly held dichotomy between states and events is linked to that between programs and their runs, as strings representing events are extended to automata.