728 14. Adverbial before-clauses and after-clauses before-clause. The function of the measure phrase is then to specify the distance between the contained orientation time of the head clause and the W-posterior Anchor time: Two days before he died, John had (already) seen a doctor. There are two anteriority relations involved here: ‘John’s seeing a doctor was anterior to a time anterior to his death’. The first anteriority relation is ex- pressed by had seen, the second by before. This complex temporal structure can be made explicit by the use of adverbials measuring the length of the time spans corresponding with the two anteriority relations. Consider: Two days before he died Bill had (already) seen a doctor a week earlier. As is clear from this paraphrase, the situation time of the head clause is T- anterior to the contained orientation time: it lies a week before the latter. (The contained orientation time itself lies two days before the Anchor time, which is the time of Bill’s death.) This means that the before-clause is used as an orientation-time adverbial: it does not contain the situation time of the head clause but another orientation time to which the situation time of the head clause is T-anterior. Further examples: Long before he had gone to a psychiatrist Bill had already attempted to commit suicide twice. ? Long before he had gone to see a psychiatrist Bill was already going to commit sui- cide. Long before she was going to have her baby, Mary had already decided to put it up for adoption. (ϭ on the interpretation ‘Long before she was in labour …’) The following are similar examples, but with reference to the post-present: Two years before he is sixty-five Bill will already have been retired for exactly three months. Two years before he is sixty-five Bill will already be going to retire. In these examples, the head clause situation is T-anterior to an implicit orienta- tion time contained in the Adv-time specified by the before-clause. That con- tained orientation time is said to lie two years before the implicit central orien- tation time of a post-present domain that is established by the absolute-relative tense form in the head clause (viz. will have been retired and will be going to retire). The situation time of the before-clause is represented as T-simultaneous with this implicit central orientation time by the Pseudo-t 0 -System form is.The situation time of the head clause is represented as T-anterior or T-posterior to the implicit central orientation time. I. Adverbial before -clauses 729 D. Factual, not-yet-factual and counterfactual before -clauses In sections 14.11 to 14.13 we review the factors (including the choice of tense) that induce a factual, counterfactual or not-yet-factual (respectively) reading of a be fore-clause. In this section we will bring together in a systematic way the various observa- tions about not-yet-factuality, factuality and counterfactuality that are scat- tered over the previous sections. We will also make some new observations. 14.11 Factual interpretations of before-clauses 14.11.1 In section 8.26.1 it was pointed out that a time-specifying adverbial can- not refer to t 0 on a single situation reading: *I am working at five o’clock cannot be used to combine the ideas ‘I am (now) working’ and ‘It’s (now) 5 o’clock’ in one clause. The same is true of *I am working before six o’clock. Naturally, the restriction also applies to clauses functioning as time-specifying adverbials: I am now working (*when it is 5 o’clock). I am now working (*before it is 6 o’clock). There are some exceptions to this rule, which we will point out first, so that they can be eliminated from the subsequent discussion that is based on the above rule. (a) Time-specifying adverbials can be used in sentences expressing a present habit: I am always at work {at 5 o’clock / when it is 5 o’clock / before 5 o’clock / before it is 5 o’clock}. She always checks the oil in the car before she sets off on a long journey. (b) Time-specifying adverbials can also combine with present tense forms that do not really refer to the present but form part of the ‘Special Present Time-sphere System’ (see 3.2Ϫ11), e. g. in historic speech, summaries, etc. (from the summary of a novel) At eight p.m. John is still working, [though it’s high time for him to go home.] (c) There is no problem either if the adverbial forms part of the description of the situation that is located at t 0 : [You always say I’m never at work at 7 a.m. Well, I’m at work now, and it’s precisely 7 a.m.] So I am working at 7 a.m. today. 730 14. Adverbial before-clauses and after-clauses See 5.11.1 for the discussion of a similar use of the present perfect with an adverbial like at 7 p.m. (d) The present tense can also combine with adverbial time clauses that have a nontemporal connotation. [“What are you doing?”] Ϫ “I’m cleaning the house after your friends have left.” (connotation: ‘Your friends have made a mess of the house.’) [“What are you doing?”] “You’re watching TV when you should really be study- ing!” (contrastive connotation) [“What are you doing?”] Ϫ “I’m making up the beds before all the guests arrive.” (connotation: ‘The imminent arrival of the guests gives me some extra work’, or something similar) How many foul balls can you hit before you are considered out? (www) (resulta- tive connotation) You’re giving up before you’ve even tried! (BNC) (atemporal interpretation) (e) A head clause in the present tense can combine with a ‘narrative’ (see 13.1.3) before-clause. (As explained in 14.11.4, a narrative before-clause ‘pushes forward the action’ instead of establishing an Adv-time.) [To have the house redecorated would be all right if it was our house,] but we are renting at the moment before we go back to Australia. (adapted from www) However, barring the above exceptions (a)Ϫ(e), a before-clause cannot locate its situation time at t 0 . Barring the same exceptions, it cannot locate it in the pre-present either: *I’ve been working before it is 5 o’clock (now). (continuative perfect reading) *This painting has taken me three months before it is ready. (constitution reading) Moreover, a before-clause in the past tense cannot combine with a head clause using an indefinite present perfect, because such a before-clause is a ‘past-zone adverbial’ and therefore incompatible with an indefinite perfect interpretation of the head clause (see 12.6.1): I {saw / *have seen} him before he entered the church. Furthermore, a before-clause that is to receive a factual (ϭ t 0 -factual) inter- pretation cannot be located in a post-present domain, because the post-present is by definition not-yet-factual-at-t 0 . It follows from all this that it is only in past domains that a before-clause can be interpreted as t 0 -factual. In what follows we will therefore only consider before-clauses combining with a head clause in one of the past time-sphere tenses. 14.11.2 We have argued that in examples like He left the island before I arrived, both left and arrived are absolute preterites, which each establish a I. Adverbial before -clauses 731 past domain of their own. The temporal relation between the two domains is only expressed by before. In the temporal structure created by before, the situa- tion time of the head clause functions as the contained orientation time and the situation time of the before-clause functions as the Anchor time. See Figure 14.10 in section 14.8.2. Since both clauses establish a past domain by the use of an absolute tense, they both represent their situation as t 0 -factual (ϭ factual at t 0 ). In other words, this type of sentence is used to express that two situations actualized (became a fact) in the past and that they did so in a particular temporal order (indicated by before only). The same reading is invited if the head clause uses the past perfect, in which case the temporal order is expressed both by before and by the tense: He had left the island before I arrived. (Unlike the past tense, the past perfect can be chosen in order to convey that the anterior situation was somehow relevant at the past binding orientation time, e. g. because it produced a resultant state, or in order to express a continuative interpretation, as in He had been living with Carrie for years before he found out she was a kleptomaniac.) 14.11.3 Apart from the above types of factually interpreted temporal struc- tures, there are a few special sentence structures in which the before-clause (in the past tense) is interpreted as t 0 -factual (at least, when the sentence is used out of context, as in the previous examples). One such structure is the type referred to in 14.6.7 above and illustrated by sentences like We had to force the lock before we could open the door. Here the factual interpretation results from the application of the following principle: A before-clause in the past tense receives a t 0 -factual interpretation if the head clause situation is factual and its actualization is seen as a necessary and sufficient condition for the before-clause situation to actualize. This type of sentence is special in that it does not allow the insertion of a measure phrase (e. g. long) before the before-clause. As a rule, factual before- clauses do allow such an insertion Ϫ see 14.6.13. The fact that a measure phrase is not allowed here may be a sign that the before-clause is not primarily interpreted as a time-specifying adverbial but that the sentence as a whole is read as a kind of conditional sentence. This would mean that the idea of tempo- ral precedence has been metaphorically extended to the idea of logical prece- dence: the head clause and the before-clause express something like condition and consequent, or cause and effect. (This is also in keeping with the fact that in this pattern the head clause normally precedes the before-clause.) 14.11.4 A second special type in which a before-clause in the past tense can be interpreted as a t 0 -factual before-clause is when the before-clause is not a time-specifying adverbial but functions as a narrative before -clause.As 732 14. Adverbial before-clauses and after-clauses noted in 5.25.2, a ‘narrative’ time clause pushes forward the action instead of functioning as a time-specifying adverbial (establishing an Adv-time). Narrative when-clauses (e. g. I was just going to leave when the telephone rang) were discussed in section 13.1.3. The following are some examples of narrative be- fore-clauses (which, just like narrative when-clauses, use an absolute tense form): Instead of entering the house at once he waited some time before he pushed the key into the lock. 16 [When they reached the porch] they both stood panting for a moment, before the old man said: “I’ll take off me boots.” (LOB) He was hardly in the house before the storm broke. I was just going to say that before you went “Psssst”. (BAXT) We had hardly gotten into the Jacuzzi before we were in the bedroom. (www) Her infidelity had spanned the late summer and most of the autumn before she began to realize that any affair was just as fraught with risk as marriage was. (SOA) In the following example the speaker uses the past perfect instead of an abso- lute past tense: He had only time to glimpse her face, before she had gone up the north aisle. (www) By referring to the resultant state rather than to the action producing it, the speaker emphasizes the swiftness of ‘her’ completing the action of going up the north aisle. It should be noted, however, that a narrative before-clause does not always have a t 0 -factual meaning when it follows it would (not) be long or it was (not) going to be long. If it does, it can use either the absolute past tense or the conditional tense (as an equivalent to factual was / were to,asinTen years later Bill {was to / would}bethe richest man in town Ϫ see 9.6.7). If it does not have a t 0 -factual meaning but merely refers to an anticipated situation (as in free indirect speech), it normally uses a relative past tense form: [The transition from stage to gym may seem unlikely, but Louise Dench, a ballet teacher from Coventry, believes that it was inevitable. “Well it’s happened with box- ing and salsa,] so many things get turned into exercise videos and classes it wasn’t going to be long before it happened with ballet. [I mean, it is one of the most demanding forms of exercise.”] (www) (absolute preterite; t 0 -factual interpretation) [The family of three Sarus cranes had been flying for a long time now and the baby was definitely tired.] However, it wasn’t going to be long before they would arrive at the destination of their annual migration, Sultanpur National Park. [As they 16. Because a narrative before-clause is t 0 -factual, the form pushed is an absolute tense form. This is confirmed by the ‘represented speech test’ (see 8.25): He said that instead of entering the house at once he had waited some time before he had pushed the key into the lock. I. Adverbial before -clauses 733 passed over the crowded cities below, their sharp eyes hunted for signs of the sooth- ing green reflections of the lake that greeted them every year. This year, it was not to be. There, before them, stood small pools of water instead.] (www) (The t 0 -factual sentences following the before-clause confirm the t 0 -factuality of the before-clause.) [I was still running 6:20 miles, but I was struggling and breathing hard.] It wasn’t going to be long before I started to crash. (www) (anticipated situation; relative past tense; no t 0 -factual reading) 14.11.5 Another type of factual before-clause is to be found in clefts whose head clause does no more than indicate (and highlight) the time of the before- clause situation: (10a) It was 7 p.m. before he arrived in London. (10b) It was the following holidays before they fought again. (TOCC) In (10a-b), 7 p.m. and the following holidays indicate the time at which the before-clause situation actualized. That is, in each case the situation time of the head clause and the situation time of the before-clause are interpreted as simultaneous, so that before can be replaced by when: (11a) It was 7 p.m. when he arrived in London. (11b) It was the following holidays when they fought again. However, (11aϪb) are not quite synonymous with (10aϪb). The following are better paraphrases of (10aϪb): (12a) It was not until 7 p.m. that he arrived in London. (12b) It was not until the following holidays that they fought again. Whereas (11aϪb) just locate the when-clause situation at the time indicated by the head clause, (10aϪb) and (11aϪb) do more than this: they also stress the existence of an interval of time between a contextually given orientation time and the situation time of the subclause, as well as the nonactualization of the subclause situation during the interval in question. (The use of by the time that instead of before in (10aϪb) would have roughly the same effect.) In (10aϪb) the function of before is thus to bring out a W-posteriority (‘later’) relation which is expressed by no other constituent in the sentence (since the situation time of the head clause and the situation time of the before-clause are interpre- ted as simultaneous with each other). Sentences like (10aϪb) form a subtype of sentences with a ‘narrative before- clause’ (see 14.11.4): the before-clause pushes forward the action and the head clause merely gives temporal information about the location of the before- clause situation. It should also be noted that in the type of example under discussion the past tense can easily be replaced by the past perfect if the head clause also uses the past perfect: It had been Tuesday before the police {intervened / had intervened}. In that case the time of the intervention is repre- 734 14. Adverbial before-clauses and after-clauses sented as T-anterior to the same implicit past orientation time to which the situation time of the head clause is also T-anterior. In other words, had inter- vened is an instance of ‘indirect binding’ (see 9.28). 14.11.6 The before-clause is also t 0 -factual in clefts like the following, in which the head clause is negative and the highlighted constituent is not a tem- poral NP but a measure phrase which indicates the temporal distance between (the beginning of) the time of actualization of the before-clause situation and a preceding (contextually given) past orientation time: It was not {long / *the following holidays} before they fought again. It was not long before the child was playing with the other children. Examples like these arguably form a kind of cleft construction. They alternate with examples like the following, which rather invite an analysis in terms of extraposition of the before-clause (which is the semantic subject): [They began to groom him as Brown’s heir apparent.] It didn’t last long before Morrison was shifted back to outside linebacker. (www) 14.11.7 A variant of the construction It wasn’t long before … is illustrated by the following, in which the before-clause is in the past perfect and is also interpreted as t 0 -factual: [When we got to the spot there were 18 wild dogs and they were looking very hungry.] It was not long before they had found their prey and in their own inimitable style made short work of eating ‘breakfast’. (www) [Then she put on her boots, which took her an hour’s walk at every stride,] and it was not long before she had overtaken them. (www) [While early duels had been fought with knives and modern pistols,] it was not long before duelling had become a celebrated and highly ritualized practice. (www) The use of the past perfect, which expresses anteriority to the implicit con- tained orientation time, means that not long measures the distance between the contextual orientation time and the end of the before-clause situation (rather than its beginning, as in the examples in 14.11.6). 14.11.8 Before-clauses in sentences of the types discussed in 14.11.5Ϫ7 are interpreted as t 0 -factual because they specify the distance between a given ori- entation time and the initial or terminal point of the situation time of the before-clause. 17 This is especially clear when the before-clause uses the past perfect: 17. Compare: in section 14.6.13 we saw that the addition of a measure phrase (e. g. long) to before normally produces a factual interpretation. . 14. Adverbial before-clauses and after-clauses before-clause. The function of the measure phrase is then to specify the distance between the contained orientation time of the head clause and the. etc. (from the summary of a novel) At eight p.m. John is still working, [though it’s high time for him to go home.] (c) There is no problem either if the adverbial forms part of the description of the. the existence of an interval of time between a contextually given orientation time and the situation time of the subclause, as well as the nonactualization of the subclause situation during the