Revisiting the ISO-TimeML abstract syntax

Abstract

This paper describes some of the ongoing work within the ISO preliminary work item PWI 254617-17, 'Interlinking of annotations'. This PWI investigates the possibilities and problems of combining annotations made with differ- ent annotation schemes. using the 'interlink- ing' approach (Bunt, 2024) applied to different parts of the multi-part standard ISO 24617, 'Se- mantic annotation framework'. This paper fo- cuses on the combination of ISO-TimeML and QuantML at the level of abstract syntax. A new version is defined for the ISO-TimeML ab- stract syntax specification and how it relates to the concrete (XML-based) syntax as a basis for this combination. As a side-effect, some issues in the use of ISO-TimeML come to light that could be relevant for a possible future second edition of this standard.