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<Paper uid="P91-1008">
  <Title>Open Explana~ lanatidegn Closed Open Narration Explanation/// ~xplanation Closed ~ Open Narration</Title>
  <Section position="3" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="intro">
    <SectionTitle>
Abstract
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> This paper presents a formal account of the temporal interpretation of text. The distinct natural interpretations of texts with similar syntax are explained in terms of defeasible rules characterising causal laws and Gricean-style pragmatic maxims. Intuitively compelling patterns of defea,sible entailment that are supported by the logic in which the theory is expressed are shown to underly temporal interpretation.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> The Problem The temporal interpretation of text involves an account of how the events described are related to each other. These relations follow from the discourse relations that are central to temporal import. 1 Some of these are listed below, where the clause a appears in the text before fl: Narration(a,fl): The event described in fl is a consequence of (but not necessarily caused by) tile event described in a: (1) Max stood up. John greeted him.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> Elaboration(a,~): The event described in /? contributes to the occurrence of the culmination *This paper is greatly influenced by work reported in (Lascarides &amp; Oberlander, 1991). We would llke to thank Hans Kamp, Michael Morreau and .Ion Oberlander for their significant contributions to the content of this paper. All mistakes are solely our responsibility. t The support of the Science and Engineering Research Council through project number GR/G22077 is gratefully acknowledged. HCRC is supported by the Economic and</Paragraph>
  </Section>
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