The grammar of the english verb phrase part 101 doc

I. Adverbial before -clauses 693 This shows that the use of an absolute tense in a before-clause is not a priori impossible. As usual, the claim that a before-clauses can in principle use either a relative or an absolute tense form is difficult to corroborate when the verb form is in the past tense, because there is no formal difference between an absolute and a relative preterite form. In sections 14.4.2Ϫ5 we will review some evidence and apply it to the following example: John left before Bill arrived. We will argue that in examples like this both the head clause and the before- clause use an absolute tense form, i. e. that John left before Bill arrived has the temporal structure shown in Figure 14.4, which is determined both by the tenses and by the semantics of before. On the other hand, we will argue that arrived is a relative past tense form in John wanted to leave before Bill arrived. Figure 14.4. The temporal structure of John left before Bill arrived. 14.4.2 In a sentence like John left before Bill arrived not only the head clause situation but also the before-clause situation is represented (and interpreted) as ‘ factual at t 0 ’ (or ‘t 0 -factual’), i. e. as a situation which did actualize in the past. In this respect this sentence differs from John wanted to leave before Bill arrived, in which the before-clause situation is not represented as a past fact but as part of a past expectation which may or may not have been fulfilled before t 0 . In other words, in John wanted to leave before Bill arrived, the before-clause forms part of the opaque (intensional) context created by want. 3 John’s leaving is therefore not represented as t 0 -factual but as something 3. As noted in 10.4.6, an opaque context (or ‘intensional context’) is one in which the reference is not to the real world but to an alternative (e. g. imaginary) world. Such a context is created by (amongst other things) ‘intensional verbs’ (‘verbs of propositional attitude’) like want, expect, believe, think, imagine, etc. Clauses that form part of an intensional context receive an ‘opaque’ (‘de dicto’) interpretation, i. e. their truth is not evaluated in relation to the real world but in relation to the alternative world referred to. Clauses belonging to a nonintensional context receive a ‘transparent’ (‘de re’) inter- pretation, i. e. their truth is evaluated in relation to the real world. It is typical of such an interpretation that the truth value of the clause is not affected when a referring expression in the clause is replaced by an ‘identical’ expression (i.e. by an expression 694 14. Adverbial before-clauses and after-clauses which John wanted to happen later. Whether it did actually happen or not is not expressed by this sentence. The same is true of the before-clause situation (Bill’s arrival), which is represented (by before) as posterior to John’s leaving. Because of this posteriority relation, Bill’s arrival is interpreted as ‘ not-yet- factual at the binding time ’, i. e. as not yet a fact at the time of the situation time of the head clause (ϭ the time of John’s leaving). Note that we are not using the term ‘not-yet-factual’ in the sense of ‘counterfactual’ (which is the opposite of ‘t 0 -factual’ and means ‘running counter to what is factual at t 0 ’). Thus, John wanted to leave before Bill arrived does not imply that Bill did not arrive; it just fails to imply that he did. In what follows we will simplify ‘not- yet-factual at the binding time’ to ‘ not-yet-factual at t’ or simply ‘not- yet-factual ’. Since it is inherent in the structure ‘A before B’ that B is not yet a fact at the time of A, one might expect that all sentences consisting of a head clause and a before-clause represent the situation time of the before-clause as not-yet- factual, and therefore (a fortiori) as not t 0 -factual. However, it is clear from John left before Bill arrived that not all before-clauses are not interpreted as t 0 -factual. This means that there is something in John left before Bill arrived that supplements the natural not-yet-factual interpretation of the before-clause with a t 0 -factual (ϭ factual at t 0 ) interpretation: ‘Bill had not yet arrived when John left, but he did arrive later.’ Since the sentence is used out of context, the only element that can be responsible for this t 0 -factual interpretation is the fact that arrived is an absolute tense form. If a clause uses an absolute past tense form, it T-relates its situation to t 0 , not to the situation time of the head clause (nor to any other orientation time that is related to the situation time of the head clause). The use of the absolute preterite places the situation time of the before-clause on the time line, so that, in the absence of any indication to the contrary, it is interpreted as a past fact, i. e. as t 0 -factual. In this context, it is useful to compare the following: (2a) John wanted to leave before Gordon arrived. (2b) John left before Gordon arrived. (2c) Mary {said / imagined / believed} that John had left before Gordon arrived. (2d) Mary {said / imagined / believed} that John left before Gordon arrived. with the same referent). Thus, since in the real world the capital of France and Paris have the same referent, we can replace the former by the latter in The capital of France has ten million inhabitants without altering the truth value of the sentence. In sentences that receive an opaque interpretation, the replacement of a term by an ‘identical’ expression may affect the truth value: the sentence Bill thinks that Paris is the capital of Spain may be true even if Bill thinks that the capital of France is the capital of Spain is not true. I. Adverbial before -clauses 695 In (2a), the before-clause forms part of the intensional domain (world) created by wanted and represents the time of its situation (Gordon’s expected arrival) as T-simultaneous with the Anchor time that is implicit in before (ϭ ‘before the time at which’). In this way the before-clause situation is not directly related to t 0 . Arrived is therefore a relative preterite form. This, and the fact that the before-clause forms part of an intensional domain, entails that the before- clause situation (Gordon’s arrival) is not represented as a past fact. Instead it is represented as a situation which, at the time of the head clause situation, was expected to actualize later. In sum, in (2a) arrived is a relative preterite, whose situation is not interpreted as a past fact. When (2b) is used out of context, the before-clause does not form part of an intensional domain and is interpreted as t 0 -factual. This is in keeping with the claim that arrived is now an absolute preterite form, which means that it relates its situation time directly to t 0 . Example (2c) is like (2a) in that both the before-clause and its head clause form part of the intensional domain created by the first clause (i. e. the matrix) and are therefore interpreted as not-yet-factual at t 0 . The fact that the situation time of the head clause is now represented as T-anterior to the central TO of the temporal domain does not alter this. Sentence (2d) differs from (2c) only in that the speaker does not incorporate the situation times of the head clause and the before-clause into the temporal domain established by the matrix clause but has these two clauses shift the domain: both left and arrived are absolute tense forms. However, this does not produce a t 0 -factual (nonintensional, transparent) interpretation of these forms, because the head clause and the before-clause are anyhow not interpreted as t 0 -factual (ϭ factual at t 0 ) because the head clause is syntactically dependent on the intensional verb of the matrix clause. 4 We can draw the following conclusions from the above examples: (a) When it is within the scope of an intensional verb, a head clause is not interpreted as t 0 -factual (i. e. as being a past fact), irrespective of whether it uses a relative tense, such as had left in (2c), or an absolute tense, such as left in (2d). 4. In other words, in this sentence both John left and Bill arrived shift the domain (i. e. use the absolute past tense). But the t 0 -factual interpretation that is normally induced by the use of the absolute preterite is overridden by the fact that the that-clause depends on an intensional verb which refers to a world that is different from the speaker’s t 0 -world. The not-yet-factual-at-t 0 reading thus persists in spite of the fact that the tense does not locate John’s leaving and Bill’s arrival in the temporal domain created by the intensional verb. In other words, the syntactic relation between the matrix and the that-clause any- how imposes an intensional reading on the that-clause, even though the tense of the head clause does not. 696 14. Adverbial before-clauses and after-clauses (b) If the head clause is not interpreted as t 0 -factual, neither is the before- clause depending on it. (c) When not used in an intensional context, a head clause and a before-clause in the past tense are interpreted as t 0 -factual. This is the case in (2b). A t 0 - factual interpretation implies that the situation referred to is T-related to the speaker’s t 0 . This means that the past tense forms in (2b) are absolute preterites. (d) A preterite in a before-clause can in principle be either a relative preterite or an absolute one. In the former case the tense form itself does not trigger at 0 -factual interpretation, 5 whereas in the latter case it does, unless that interpretation is ruled out by the fact that the matrix clause creates an intensional domain, as in (2d). 14.4.3 It is not easy to find further direct evidence supporting the hypothesis that a before-clause in English can in principle use either a relative or an abso- lute preterite, because there is no formal difference between these tense forms. However, indirect evidence can be derived from a cognate language, viz. Dutch. In Dutch, the two meanings that we assign to the preterite forms in English (viz. t 0 -factual and not-yet-factual-at-t) can be distinguished on the basis of the fact that one of them can be expressed in an alternative way. Consider: (3a) Jan vertrok voordat Bill toekwam. (‘John left before Bill arrived’) (3b) Jan wou vertrekken voordat Bill toekwam. (‘John wanted to leave before Bill arrived’) (3c) Jan wou vertrekken voordat Bill zou toekomen. (‘John wanted to leave before Bill would arrive’) Sentence (3a) is the exact Dutch equivalent of John left before Bill arrived, and (3b) is the exact equivalent of John wanted to leave before Bill arrived. How- ever, the latter sentence can also be translated as (3c). The reason is that Dutch allows a form of indirect binding which is ungrammatical in English: the tense structure of a Dutch sentence with a before-clause may be such that the situa- tion time of the before-clause is directly related to the situation time of the head clause (in terms of T-posteriority). Whereas in (3b) the preterite form toekwam represents the situation time of the before-clause as T-simultaneous with the implicit Anchor time, the conditional tense form zou toekomen in (3c) represents the situation time of the before-clause as T-posterior to the situation 5. Note, however, that a relative tense form is not incompatible with a factual interpreta- tion which is triggered by the linguistic or extralinguistic context. For example: [“Did he write that letter when he was going to commit suicide?”] Ϫ “No, he wrote it long before he was going to commit suicide.” The before-clause in the reply sentence ‘inherits’ the factual interpretation of the when- clause in the question. I. Adverbial before -clauses 697 time of the head clause (ϭ indirect binding). In neither case is the before-clause situation interpreted as t 0 -factual. The Dutch data lend support to the claim that the past tense form arrived in John wanted to leave before Bill arrived is a relative tense form. Since indi- rect binding is an alternative to direct binding in Dutch, the fact that the past tense form toekwam in (3b) alternates with the conditional tense form zou toekomen in (3c) corroborates the view that the former is an instance of direct binding, i. e. a relative tense form. The claim that toekwam is not a relative past tense form in (3a) is then corroborated by the fact that the substitution of the relative tense form zou toekomen for toekwam is ungrammatical in this sentence: *Jan vertrok voordat Bill zou toekomen (‘John left before Bill would arrive’). In sum, the data from Dutch are consonant with the claim that an absolute preterite represents a before-clause situation as t 0 -factual, whereas a relative tense form (irrespective of whether it is a preterite or a conditional tense form) locates the before-clause situation in the temporal (and intensional) domain established by the head clause or the matrix clause, and in so doing fails to represent it as t 0 -factual. 14.4.4 The similarity between Dutch and English is actually stronger than has been suggested so far. Although, unlike Dutch, present-day English does not allow the use of the conditional tense in before-clauses that are not-yet- factual-at-t but not t 0 -factual, more or less archaic English does allow the use of should in such before-clauses. This use of should represents a form of indi- rect binding: [I was railfanning in Lima this afternoon and took this shot of the signal bridge that guards the NS(NKP) diamond at Ford Park. I’m not sure how far back it dates, but I know it was there at least in the early ’70’s from photo’s I’ve seen.] I wanted to take a picture before it should suddenly disappear like some other things recently. (www) [It was all of 8 o’clock by now and I told of my plan.] I wanted to go to the cemetery before we should leave for the other half of our pilgrimage. (www) (written in 1971, but quite possibly a bit pseudo-archaic) [When we came to understand what the gentleman meant we told him that we were very glad, for] we wanted to wake him up before he should die with such a misunderstanding of God’s terms. (www) [I now gained on him, so much so that when I first saw the ocean he was but one day’s journey in advance, and] I hoped to intercept him before he should reach the beach. (www) (from Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’) [… knowing in what good hands I left the cause, I came away on Monday,] trusting that many posts would not pass before I should be followed by such very letters as these. (www) (from Jane Austen’s ‘Mansfield Park’) [Where is it to end? Suppose the Bowl were increased to even 125,000,] how many years would it be before we should have 150,000 seats demanded? (www) 698 14. Adverbial before-clauses and after-clauses 14.4.5 Further evidence, again from Dutch, can be derived from what we have called the ‘Dutch test’ (see 8.32). This test relies on the observation that Dutch can sometimes use the present perfect where English has to use an abso- lute preterite, but cannot normally use the present perfect where English uses a relative preterite. If we apply this test to John left before Bill arrived,wesee that it can be translated not only as (3a) but also as follows: 6 Jan is vertrokken voordat ik ben aangekomen. (‘John has left before I have arrived’) Since the Dutch present perfect cannot normally be used as a relative tense, we must conclude that the present perfect in the before-clause is an absolute tense form, i. e. a form which shifts the domain. Given the strong similarity between the English and Dutch tense systems (especially the fact that neither language uses the present perfect to express a relation in a past or pre-present domain), this corroborates our claim that the preterite in the English counterpart of the above example should also be analysed as an absolute tense form. 14.4.6 The above conclusion is also supported by the ‘represented speech test’ Ϫ see 8.25. Consider the following scrap of conversation: A. John is a doctor. And I think Bill is a doctor too. B. Yes. As a matter of fact Bill was a doctor before John was one. B’s reply can be reported as Mary said that Bill had been a doctor before John had been one. T he fact that both preterites of (B) can be ‘backshifted’ in represented speech proves that both preterites are absolute tense forms Ϫ see 8.25. (Note that had been cannot be an instance of indirect binding Ϫ see 9.29. Before-clauses do not allow indirect binding by means of a past perfect, because, unlike when, before rules out the possibility that, if both clauses use the past perfect, the before-clause situation is interpreted as W-simultaneous with the head clause situation.) 14.4.7 In sum, there appears to be sufficient evidence that a preterite form in a before-clause can be an absolute tense form, in which case the situation it refers to is represented as a past fact. B. The tense system if the before -clause is a situation-time adverbial As noted in 14.2.2, adverbial before-clauses are nearly always used as situation- time adverbials. An investigation of the possible tense combinations in the head 6. This does not mean that the two Dutch translations are interchangeable in any context. The two are subject to slightly different conditions of use, but this is irrelevant to the argument that is presented here. I. Adverbial before -clauses 699 clause and the before-clause is necessary because different tense patterns often entail different meanings (which have to do with different degrees and kinds of factuality). As will be made clear, adverbial before-clauses functioning as situation-time adverbials can appear in four major tense configurations (apart from some others mentioned further on). They are exemplified by the following sentences, all of which can be used to describe the same state of affairs, but all of which are interpreted differently: Jim arrived before the others left. Jim arrived before the others had left. Jim had arrived before the others had left. Jim had arrived before the others left. The first sentence (with an absolute tense in both clauses) will be discussed in 14.5. The second (with an absolute tense in the head clause and a relative one in the before-clause) will be examined in 14.6. The third sentence (with a rela- tive tense in both clauses) will be discussed in 14.7. The fourth example (with a relative tense in the head clause and an absolute one in the before-clause) will be investigated in 14.8. In all four sections, related tense patterns will be investigated too. 14.5 Absolute tense forms in both before-clause and head clause 14.5.1 It is possible for both the head clause and the before-clause to use the absolute past tense. In 14.4.2Ϫ6 we have adduced evidence that this tense structure is realized in sentences like John left before Bill arrived. This type of sentence is typically used when the speaker wants to express no more than that two situations actualized in a particular order (‘A before B’) in the past. The claim that both tense forms are absolute tense forms is in keeping with the fact that both situations are interpreted as t 0 -factual. The temporal structure of John left before Bill arrived is represented by Figure 14.4 in section 14.4.1. 14.5.2 As we have seen, it is not normally possible for a before-clause to use an ‘Absolute Future System form’ (see 10.1) establishing a post-present domain: Bill will leave before the pub {closes /*will close}. However, there are a few exceptions to this rule. These constitute further cases in which an absolute tense form is used in both the before-clause and the head clause. (a) Firstly, there are situations involving a head clause and a before-clause in which the temporal relation between the two situations seems to be less . t 0 , not to the situation time of the head clause (nor to any other orientation time that is related to the situation time of the head clause). The use of the absolute preterite places the situation. is the capital of Spain may be true even if Bill thinks that the capital of France is the capital of Spain is not true. I. Adverbial before -clauses 695 In (2a), the before-clause forms part of. time of the before-clause is directly related to the situation time of the head clause (in terms of T-posteriority). Whereas in (3b) the preterite form toekwam represents the situation time of the