Abstract
In this talk, I will describe a use of simple pictorial representations in showing the understanding of natural language that is about multiple or extended events. These are sentences like "baste the vegetables twice" or "simmer the soup for fifteen minutes, stirring frequently". The visualisation exploits the complementarity relationship between objects and events, often noted in the literature, to map from an essentially temporal entity domain --- eventualities --- to a spatial one --- pictorial representation of their execution structure.
This talk will focus on eventuality structure, the object-eventuality analogy, and visualising eventuality structure. The the natural language understanding aspect will not be discussed in detail.