{
  "id": "early.temporal",
  "term": "early",
  "sense": "temporal",
  "pos": "adjective",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 3,
  "arena": "early",
  "domain": "emergence",
  "style": null,
  "definition": "before the usual time",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "previous.temporal",
      "usual.common",
      "time.dimension"
    ],
    "interaction": "previous time together with usual time creates a thing that is before the usual time",
    "novel_properties": [
      "relative precedence",
      "deviation from regularity",
      "temporal exception"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "The 2003 Northeast Blackout began when a software bug in FirstEnergy's control system failed to flag overloaded power lines.",
      "domain": "computing"
    },
    {
      "text": "The eruption of Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980, occurred weeks before geologists expected a major event.",
      "domain": "geology"
    },
    {
      "text": "In 1997, Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov in a chess match earlier than AI experts predicted.",
      "domain": "technology"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "previous.temporal",
      "note": "is-a",
      "type": "is-a"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "earlier",
    "earliest",
    "early"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "openrouter:openai/gpt-oss-120b",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.6,
    "reconciled": {
      "by": "openrouter:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
      "date": "2026-07-31",
      "changed": "components",
      "note": "Added missing but essential 'time.dimension' to components since both 'previous' and 'usual' are temporal concepts that depend on time as a dimension."
    }
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-early.temporal"
}