Extracting temporal references to assign document event-time periods

Abstract

This paper presents a new approach for the automatic assignment of document event-time periods. This approach consists of extracting temporal information from document texts, and translating it into temporal expressions of a formal time model. From these expressions, we are able to approximately calculate the event-time periods of documents. The obtained event-time periods can be useful for both retrieving documents and finding relationships between them, and their inclusion in Information Retrieval Systems can produce significant improvements in their retrieval effectiveness.