Both absolute and relative types of temporal information map to unique sets of one or more primitive temporal elements. For relative temporal information, the temporal ordering of the underlying time structure determines this set, whereas, the mapping from absolute temporal information to this set is more direct. Duration type information specifies the number of temporal elements to be chosen as well as the ordering for these elements but does not identify what those elements actually are. Fuzzy type information specifies possible sets of temporal elements; the elements, number of elements or both may vary for these sets.