742 14. Adverbial before-clauses and after-clauses II. Adverbial after -clauses The temporal structure of the conjunction after is represented by Figure 14.12. 14.17 The temporal structure of after 14.17.1 In the same way as before means ‘before the time when’, the conjunc- tion after is semantically equivalent to ‘after the time {that / when / at which}’. This is in keeping with the fact that the conjunction after has actually devel- oped from a phrase corresponding to the modern English phrases ‘after the time that’ or ‘after then that’. In the paraphrase ‘after the time {that / when / at which}’, the word time refers to the Anchor time, which is the initial point of the Adv-time. (When a before-clause is used, the Anchor time is the terminal point of the Adv-time.) The Adv-time, which is the period stretching from that initial point onwards, contains the ‘contained orientation time of the head clause’. The latter is either the situation time of the head clause or another orientation time which binds the situation time of the head clause. In sum, the temporal structure of after is as shown in Figure 14.12. Figure 14.12. Representation of the temporal structure of after. This structure is the mirror-image of the structure of before shown in Figure 14.1. Whereas a before-clause specifies an Adv-time leading up to an ‘Anchor time’ (which either is the situation time of the before-clause or binds the situa- tion time of the before-clause), an adverbial after-clause specifies an Adv-time starting from an Anchor time onwards. The Anchor time is thus the initial point of the Adv-time. In the structure of the tense of the after-clause, the Anchor time is usually the situation time of the after-clause itself, but it may also be an implicit time binding that situation time. For example: John left after I arrived. (The Adv-time is a pragmatically restricted period stretching from the Anchor time onwards. The Anchor time is the situation time of the after- clause, i. e. the time of my arrival. The Adv-time contains the situation time of the head clause, i. e. the time of John’s leaving.) II. Adverbial after -clauses 743 John left after I had arrived. (The Adv-time is a pragmatically restricted period following the Anchor time, to which the situation time of the after-clause is repre- sented as T-anterior. The Adv-time contains the situation time of the head clause.) [You can’t rely on Bert. He’s too volatile. Now he says this, now something else. Remember what he said last Christmas.] Hardly a week after he had promised us to stay, he was going to leave the country. (The Adv-time is a pragmatically restricted period following the Anchor time, to which the situation time of the after-clause is represented as T-anterior. This Adv-time contains the implicit contained orientation time, to which the situation time of the head clause is T-posterior.) The temporal structure realized in the last example is shown in Figure 14.13. Figure 14.13. The temporal structure of Hardly a week after he had promised us to stay, he was going to leave the country. The fact that after can involve an implicit Anchor time is best illustrated by examples like Was that before or after the policemen had arrived? This sentence is interpreted as ‘Was that before or after the time when (it was the case that) the policemen had arrived?’. This means that the situation time of the before-clause (ϭ the time of the policemen’s arrival) is here represented as T-anterior to the Anchor time that is implicit in the conjunction before (and lexicalizes as the time in the paraphrase ‘before the time that’), while the situa- tion time of the after-clause (ϭ the time of the policemen’s arrival) is repre- sented as T-anterior to the Anchor time that is implicit in the conjunction after (and lexicalizes as the time in the paraphrase ‘after the time that’). In both cases the situation time of the head clause is contained in the Adv-time. When both the head clause and the after-clause refer to the post-present, the situation time of the after-clause is related to the implicit Anchor time by means of a Pseudo-t 0 -System form: He will repair the sink after he {comes /*will come / has come /*will have come} home. 744 14. Adverbial before-clauses and after-clauses This means that, like before-clauses, adverbial after-clauses sometimes use rela- tive tenses. However, as in the case of before-clauses (see Bill left before I arrived in 14.4.2Ϫ5), after-clauses can also establish a past temporal domain: I arrived after Bill left. In that case the Anchor time is the situation time of the after-clause. 14.17.2 In sum, we can say that the conjunction after establishes an Adv-time whose starting point is the ‘Anchor time’ which lexicalizes as the time in the paraphrase ‘after the time that’. This Anchor time may be either the situation time of the after-clause (as in He left after I arrived) or an implicit orientation time to which the situation time of the after-clause is temporally related (as in He will leave after I have arrived). The Adv-time contains the ‘contained orien- tation time’ (in terms of inclusion or coincidence). If there is inclusion, after is interpreted as ‘at some time in the course of the period after’. If there is coinci- dence, after means ‘throughout the period after’. The contained orientation time may be either the situation time of the head clause (as in He left after I arrived) or another orientation time temporally binding the situation time of the head clause (as in He will repair the sink after he has come home). 14.17.3 When the after-clause situation is durative, the Anchor time (i. e. the initial point of the Adv-time) is the terminal point of the durative after-clause situation. That is, ‘A after B’ is interpreted as ‘A after the terminal point of B’ rather than as ‘A after the initial point of B’: After he had played with his brother, Tom turned on the TV-set. (interpreted as ‘after he had stopped playing with his brother’) John went out to play (five minutes) after he had done his homework. (ϭ ‘(five minutes) after he had finished doing his homework’) Because of this ‘terminative’ interpretation of the after-clause, we cannot nor- mally use the past progressive form in the after-clause, though the progressive form of the past perfect is possible. Compare: After he {played / had played /*was playing / had been playing} with his brother, Tom turned on the TV-set. The forms played and had played are both good, because they refer to the situation as a whole. Was playing is ungrammatical because it refers to a time in the course (middle) of the situation of playing: this time cannot be the termi- nal point of the situation. On the other hand, had been playing is fine because of the T-anteriority relation: even though the progressive is used, ‘A anterior to B’ can only be understood as ‘B posterior (ϭ after) situation A as a whole’, in other words, as ‘B after the terminal point of A’. 14.17.4 In sentences like the following, the temporal distance between the terminal point of the after-clause situation and the situation time of the head II. Adverbial after -clauses 745 clause (which is contained in the Adv-time) is indicated by the duration adver- bial in the after-clause, which receives a ‘situation time co-extensive with the pre-present’ (see 5.2.2Ϫ3) interpretation: He’s now opening the safe (for the first time) after it has been closed for over two months. In the following example, the present perfect again represents the after-clause situation as extending throughout a pre-present period up until t 0 . That pre- present period is measured by for twenty-two years. The head clause situation is represented as lying in the post-present and as depending on a present deci- sion. Surely, you’re not going to fire him after he’s been your foreman for twenty-two years?! The after-clause of the following example is similar, except that the past perfect represents the after-clause situation as leading up to a past orientation time, which is located two weeks before the situation time of the head clause (by the measure phrase two weeks in the head clause): The Chancellor of the Exchequer resigned two weeks after he had been in office for exactly seven years. 14.18 Temporal structures involving a head clause and an after-clause 14.18.1 It follows from the previous section that at least the following tempo- ral structures (configurations) involving a head clause and an adverbial after- clause are possible. (a) Firstly, the orientation time contained in the Adv-time may be the situation time of the head clause (which means that the adverbial is used as a situa- tion-time adverbial), while the situation time of the after-clause is the An- chor time. The man shot himself after he killed his wife and children. (The situation time of the head clause is included in the Adv-time.) He was a well respected citizen after he married the judge’s daughter. (The situation time of the head clause coincides with the Adv-time.) The past tense forms in these after-clauses are absolute tense forms. We will not go into the arguments supporting this claim here, because they are the same kind of arguments as those that were adduced in connection with the past tense of the before-clause in He left before I arrived in 14.4.2Ϫ5. 746 14. Adverbial before-clauses and after-clauses Like before-clauses, after-clauses can use the absolute past tense, but cannot use an Absolute Future System form (i. e. an absolute tense form establishing a post-present domain): The man will shoot himself after he {kills / *will kill} his wife and children. He will be a well respected citizen after he {marries / *will marry} Edith. (b) Secondly, the orientation time (from the tense structure of the head clause) that is contained in the Adv-time may be the situation time of the head clause itself (which means that the Adv-time is used as a situation-time adverbial), while the situation time of the after-clause is represented as T- anterior to the situation time of the head clause. In this case the anteriority relation between the two situation times is expressed twice: by the conjunc- tion after and by the tense of the after-clause. [I hoped that] my brother would be treated well after he had been arrested. (The time of the head clause situation, i. e. the treatment of my brother, coincides with the Adv-time: the speaker wants his brother to be treated well throughout the period following his arrest. The after-clause uses the past perfect form had been arrested to represent the situation time of the after-clause as T-anterior to the situation time of would be treated. See Figure 14.14.) He left long after I had arrived. Here too, the after-clause has to use a Pseudo-t 0 -System form when it refers to the post-present: John will go home after the pub has closed. (The situation time of the head clause is included in the Adv-time. The after-clause uses a Pseudo-t 0 -System form to T- relate the situation time of the after-clause to the situation time of the head clause.) Figure 14.14. The temporal structure of I hoped that my brother would be treated well after he had been arrested. II. Adverbial after -clauses 747 It is worth noting that after-clauses do not usually use a T-posteriority form. Examples like the following are rather unintelligible and hardly acceptable: ?? [The fact that] she left him shortly after he was going to commit suicide, [which, fortunately, we were able to prevent,] is an indication that she did not really love him. (c) Thirdly, the situation time of the head clause may be T-related to the contained orientation time (i. e. it is bound by an unspecified orientation time which is included in the Adv-time), while the situation time of the after-clause is the Anchor time. In this case the Adv-time functions as an orientation-time adverbial (since it does not contain the situation time of the head clause but rather the unspecified contained orientation time to which the situation time of the head clause is temporally related). The man had shot himself after he killed his wife and children. (The situation time of the head clause is T-anterior to the contained orientation time, which is con- tained in the Adv-time. The situation time of the after-clause is the Anchor time.) After he killed his wife and children the man was going to commit suicide. (The situation time of the head clause is T-posterior to the contained orientation time, which is contained in the Adv-time. The situation time of the after-clause is the Anchor time.) (d) Fourthly, the situation time of the head clause may be T-related to the contained orientation time, while the situation time of the after-clause is T-related to the Anchor time. Both clauses therefore use a relative tense form. In this case too the Adv-time functions as an orientation-time adver- bial. Examples illustrating this can only be found in free indirect speech: [What John says changes every few minutes.] Yesterday he was suddenly going to become a doctor after he was going to become an engineer. (ϭ ‘John first said he was going to be an engineer, but then suddenly said he was going to study medi- cine.’) A week after John was going to commit suicide, he was no longer going to do so. (free indirect speech) 14.19 The tense system if the after-clause functions as situation-time adverbial 14.19.1 When the two clauses refer to the past, there are three possibilities: (a) If the speaker just wants to represent two t 0 -factual past situations as actu- alizing in a particular temporal order (‘A after B’), he can use an absolute past tense form in both of the clauses: 748 14. Adverbial before-clauses and after-clauses I left after John arrived, not vice versa. John bought a gun after somebody broke into his house. Cherry threw a party after she passed her exams. This possibility of using the past tense in the after-clause is more frequently made use of in informal English than in more formal registers. Written texts generally prefer the past perfect in the after-clause. (b) The speaker will use the past perfect in the after-clause if he wants to represent the situation time of the after-clause as T-anterior to the situation time of the head clause. I left after John had arrived. John bought a gun after somebody had broken into his house. Here we must also mention the cases in which the speaker wants the after- clause situation to be interpreted as an ‘up-to-now’ (see 5.3.2) situation or as a resultant state: The old man died after he {had been /*was} ill for a long time. (up-to-now inter- pretation) We could only get in after John { ? opened / had opened} the door. (resultant state interpretation) In all these examples the after-clause is interpreted as t 0 -factual. This is logical: what precedes a factual head clause situation must itself be factual. (c) If the head clause expresses T-posteriority in a past domain, the after- clause situation cannot be interpreted as t 0 -factual because it forms part of a prediction or expectation. In this case the after-clause can make use of two tenses. The less usual of the two is the relative past tense, which represents the situation time of the after-clause as T-simultaneous with the Anchor time which is implicit in the semantics of after (ϭ ‘after the time that’): [He had decided] he would do it after the others left. He would do it after the others left. (free indirect speech) The more common possibility is to use the past perfect, which expresses T- anteriority to the situation time of the head clause: He would do it after the others had left. (free indirect speech) It is worth noting that indirect binding by means of the conditional tense or the conditional perfect is not allowed: *He would do it after the others {would leave / would have left}. In this respect English differs from most other Germanic languages, where indirect binding is not impossible. . contains the ‘contained orientation time of the head clause’. The latter is either the situation time of the head clause or another orientation time which binds the situation time of the head. onwards. The Anchor time is thus the initial point of the Adv-time. In the structure of the tense of the after-clause, the Anchor time is usually the situation time of the after-clause itself, but. from a phrase corresponding to the modern English phrases ‘after the time that’ or ‘after then that’. In the paraphrase ‘after the time {that / when / at which}’, the word time refers to the Anchor