Abstract
In this paper, we discuss some of the challenges of adequately applying a specification language to an annotation task, as embodied in a specific guideline. In particular, we discuss some issues with TimeML motivated by error analysis on annotated TLINKs in TimeBank. We introduce a document level information structure we call a narrative container (NC), designed to increase informativeness and accuracy of temporal relation identification. The narrative container is the default interval containing the events being discussed in the text, when no explicit temporal anchor is given. By exploiting this notion in the creation of a new temporal annotation over TimeBank, we were able to reduce inconsistencies and increase informativeness when compared to existing TLINKs in TimeBank.