närrelated

Nårrelated is a term used in linguistic data modeling to describe a temporal relationship between two events that is grounded in the idea of “when.” The concept is not widely standardized and appears mainly in discussions of event relation extraction, timeline construction, and narrative modeling. The name combines the Danish and Norwegian word nær ("when") with the English suffix related, signaling a focus on temporal connectivity rather than causality or sequence alone.

Definition and formalization: In its most general form, A is närrelated to B if the occurrence time of A lies within a predefined temporal window around the time of B and the relation expresses a contextual or conditional linkage described by “when.” A minimal formalization uses timestamps tA and tB and a time window Δ such that A is nårrelated to B when tB − Δ ≤ tA ≤ tB + Δ. Some variants introduce directionality (forward-når, where A follows B within Δ) or allow asymmetric windows to capture preferred ordering or focus on antecedent events.

Variants and examples: Forward-når captures events that occur soon after a triggering event, while backward-når captures events that tend to precede a contextual cue. An example: “The rain started when the clouds gathered” can be viewed as a nærrelated relation between the cloud-gathering event and the rain-start event within a small Δ. Overlapping-når allows for events that occur during a shared temporal interval.

Applications and limitations: Nærrelated relations are used in natural language processing, multimedia event modeling, and historical timeline assembly to link events without asserting causality. Limitations include sensitivity to the chosen Δ, timestamp accuracy, and cross-linguistic variability in temporal expressions. See also temporal relation, Allen’s interval algebra, and event extraction.