The grammar of the english verb phrase part 82 ppsx

referring to the post-present use the present tense as Pseudo-t0-System form inthe subclause, even if the subclause situation is W-anterior to the head clause situation e.. That this con

temporal domain, representing a single intensional domain (⫽ possible world) They do so because the head clause situation is dependent on the subclause situation, which means that the head clause must be interpreted within the possible world created by theif-clause (The two clauses form part of the same

‘scenario’, which is treated as a possible world.)

The use of the Pseudo-t0-System in open conditionals is not so much a logical requirement as something that has come to be conventionalized in Eng-lish In many European languages both the Absolute Future System and the Pseudo-t0-System can be used in open conditionals For example, in Dutch it is possible to say

Als we te laatzullen komen, zullen we gestraft worden.

‘If we will be late, we will be punished’

as a (less usual) alternative to

Als we te laatkomen, zullen we gestraft worden.

‘If we are late, we will be punished’

In the former case, the two situation times are located in different temporal domains, which are interpreted as ‘sloppily W-simultaneous’, i e as following each other closely in time This way of locating the situations in time fails to represent the close logical relationship between them (This presents no prob-lem because the logical relation is anyhow expressed by if (then) ) In

English, however, it has become conventional to signal the logical link by locat-ing the two situation times in the same temporal (and intensional) domain In this way English is able to distinguish between open and closed conditionals (see 10.6.8 above)

The reason behind the conventionalization may well be that the contents of

anif-clause expressing an open condition are not asserted at t0but presupposed

in the future possible world In English, the Absolute Future System is used exclusively for predictions, i e to present a proposition in the future tense as true at t0 A proposition expressing an open condition is true only in the pos-sible world created byif The use of the Absolute Future System would wrongly

represent it as a prediction, i e as a proposition which is presented as true at

t0 (That the Absolute Future System can be used in Dutch is a sign that Dutch does not use the Absolute Future System for predictions only It can also use it

to create the intensional domain of an open condition, and this domain can then be interpreted as coinciding with the domain that is independently estab-lished by the head clause.)

The result of the conventionalization in English is that open conditionals using the Pseudo-t0-System primarily express the logical ‘if p, then q’ relation-ship This means that the speaker is less concerned with the temporal relation than with the conditional one, and this explains why most open conditionals

referring to the post-present use the present tense as Pseudo-t0-System form in

the subclause, even if the subclause situation is W-anterior to the head clause

situation (e g You will be punished if you do that) The present tense is

se-lected simply because it is the unmarked Pseudo-t0-System form: it is the form

basically expressing T-simultaneity (Of the three temporal relations that can

be expressed by tense forms, simultaneity is the unmarked one.) When used

this way, the present tense is an instance of what we have called ‘sloppy

simul-taneity’ (see 9.20.4) This term refers to the phenomenon that a tense form

which is normally used to express T-simultaneity may be used in cases where

the relevant situations are not (and are not conceived of as) W-simultaneous

The clearest example of this sloppy simultaneity use of the present tense is

when the two clauses contain distinct temporal adverbials, as inIf he does not

do it tomorrow, I will do it myself next week Here the sole reason for using

the present tense in the if-clause is that the two clauses are conceived of as

belonging to one and the same intensional domain, viz the possible world

corresponding to the open condition Because the speaker is concerned with

the logical relation ‘if p, then q’ rather than with the exact temporal relation

between the two situations, he typically uses the unmarked Pseudo-t0-System

form (viz the one expressing T-simultaneity), except in the rare cases where a

more precise indication of the temporal relation is required or preferred (as in

If you haven’t left by tomorrow ) That this convention persists when distinct

time expressions are associated with the descriptions of the two situations

should not come as a surprise, for it is precisely in the cases where the temporal

relation between the situations is signalled by time adverbials that it is least

necessary for this relation to be expressed by the tense form of the

condi-tional clause

In adverbial time clauses we cannot use the Absolute Future System, except in some uses ofbefore-clauses.

10.7.2 The Absolute Future System cannot normally be used in adverbial

time clauses:

I will leave before John {is / *will be} back

I will leave when John {has arrived / *will have arrived}

I will stay here until John {arrives / *will arrive}

It has been noted in 2.14 (and will be argued in 13.3 and 14.2.1) that the

situation time of such an adverbial time clause is temporally subordinated, not

to the situation time of the head clause but to an ‘implicit orientation time’

in the semantic structure of the temporal conjunction We interpret before, when, until, etc as ‘before the time that’, ‘at the time that’, ‘until the time

that’, etc (Diachronically speaking, most temporal conjunctions have actually developed from such a prepositional phrase.) The word time in these

para-phrases refers to the implicit ‘Anchor time’ to which the situation time of the subclause is temporally subordinated Thus, inI will leave before John is back,

the situation time of the subclause must not be related to t0(by the use ofwill

be as an Absolute Future System form), nor to the situation time of the head

clause (by the use of will be as a Pseudo-t0-System form), but must be tempo-rally subordinated to the Anchor time that is implicit in before (This Anchor

time is posterior to the situation time of the head clause, but this relation is expressed by the conjunction only, not by the tense form ⫺ see Figure 10.3.)

InI will leave before John is back, the situation time of the subclause is

repre-sented as T-simultaneous with the implicit orientation time: before John is back is interpreted as ‘before the time that / when John is back’.

Figure 10.3 The temporal structure of I will leave before John is back.

The obligatory use of the Pseudo-t0-System in adverbial time clauses is again a convention typical of English and not shared by many other European lan-guages For example, the Dutch counterpart of I will leave when John has arrived may use either the Pseudo-t0-System or the Absolute Future System (but with a preference for the former):

Ik zal vertrekken wanneer Jan {aangekomen is / zal aangekomen zijn}

‘I will leave when John {has arrived / will have arrived}.’

If the Absolute Future System is used, the temporal relation between the situa-tion time of the subclause and the situasitua-tion time of the head clause is expressed only by the conjunction, not by the tense forms (both of which relate their situation time to t0)

In English, there appear to be only few cases in which the Absolute Future System can be used in an adverbial time clause All of them concern

before-clauses and will be dealt with in 14.5.2 In the present section we will restrict ourselves to pointing out two of them, just to illustrate the possibility

One case in which the Absolute Future System is used in a before-clause is

illustrated by the following:

You will need to register as a user of the Discussion Groups before youwill be able

to post any messages to the discussion (www)

[If you have not gotten any updates from the FTP site for your system before,] you

will most likely need to upgrade therpm package before you will be able to confirm

or install the new RPMs (www)

Please note that students who fail the OS proficiency exam or the EE-450 placement

exam twice will be required to take the corresponding undergraduate course (and

receive a grade of B or better) before they will be given permission to take

CSCI-551 (www)

I think those creating tablet PCs need a “killer app” to run on these units before

theywill be useful (www)

In these examples the temporal relation between the two situations seems to

be less important than the logical relation: the head clause expresses a

condi-tion for the actualizacondi-tion of the before-clause situation Semantically, the

be-fore-clause is the head clause of the ‘if p, then q’ conditional This probably

explains why the before-clause can use the Absolute Future System typically

found in head clauses

The second case we will draw attention to here is illustrated by the

follow-ing:

[In his preliminary report ( ) sir Hugh Cairns stresses that] several years must elapse

before hewill know whether the improvements ( ) are permanent (TCIE)

It is just a matter of time before the trainee schools will disappear altogether from

the scene (LOB)

[I think my blog will continue to remain what it is ⫺ trivial! I think] there is still

some time left before Iwill be done with blogging for good (www)

In this type of sentence the head clause does not describe a situation whose

time is specified by the time clause but indicates the distance between t0and a

post-present orientation time identified by the subclause The possibility of

using the future tense in the subclause can be traced back to the fact that the

head clause does not explicitly establish a post-present domain On the other

hand, the head clause can be interpreted as doing so implicitly, and this entails

that the Pseudo-t0-System can also be used (and is in fact often the more

natu-ral choice):

[Looking at the bottom row in the table below, it appears that] we have some time

before wereach the critical halfway point for oil production (www)

[In the North, Sinn Fe´in ministers are sitting in Stormont, and] it is a matter of time

before the partyenters into coalition government in the South (www)

There is still some time left before these measuresbegin to be used (www)

A final note to be made in connection with adverbial time clauses is that (apart from the exceptions just referred to) they do not allow the (temporal) use of

will at all, i e will is ungrammatical not only as an Absolute Future System

form but also as a Pseudo-t0-System form The Pseudo-t0-System form express-ing posteriority must be formed with the help of a futurish form like be go-ing to:

I promise I will put on my goggles when pieces of metal {are going to fly about /

*will fly about / *will be flying about}.

She will go back to her mother’s when she {is going to / is about to / *will} have

the baby

The reason whywill cannot be used must have to do with the fact that

posteri-ority in adverbial time clauses is always equivalent to the ‘prospective’ mean-ing (i e futurity with present orientation) which in English is typically ex-pressed bybe going to (See 7.3.2, where it was explained that the basic

mean-ing ofis going to is that the post-present situation has its roots in the present.)

10.7.3 As noted in 10.6.10, restrictive relative clauses depending on a tempo-ral noun require the Pseudo-t0-System when the temporal noun forms part of

a phrase functioning like a temporal conjunction:

By the time the fire brigade {arrive / *will arrive} it will be too late.

[And remember, the clutch is not a gradual affair like the one on a car.] The instant you {engage / *will engage} it the machine will rush away, with or without you.

(LOB) You must stop the engine the moment (that) it {begins / *will begin} to make a

strange noise

The subclauses of such examples have the same function as adverbial time clauses, which require the use of the Pseudo-t0-System (see 10.7.2)

10.7.4 That-clauses depending on the noun time use the Pseudo-t0-System in adverbials of frequency (if the head clause uses the Absolute Future System): [Read the story aloud.] The computer will stop you each time it {has failed / fails /

*will have failed / *will fail} to understand something you have said.

This will force UNP to ask you if you want to remove the routine UNP found on the file each time ithas recognized some program’s work (www) (Recognizes is fine too, but not will have recognized or will recognize.)

You will be notified each time you have accrued 60 minutes of CME credit time.

(www) (*will have accrued)

Each time youaccrue an additional 100 miles, a posting will be made to your

Mile-age Plus account (www)

10.7.5 Wh-clauses with a conditional connotation also use the Pseudo-t0

-Sys-tem for future time reference:

Saddam’s ministers said the U.S will attack regardless of whether Iraq allows UN

weapons inspectors to return (www)

[However, the displacement of the cylinder can be converted to cubic centimetres.]

The compression ratio arrived at with the formula will be the same regardless of

whether cubic inches or cubic centimetresare used (BR)

10.7.6 Concessive subclauses introduced by awh-word in -ever normally use

the Pseudo-t0-System if they have a conditional connotation (and, as usual, if

the head clause has future time reference):11

[Playing staff is to be reduced from 26 to about 18, because] whatever the Football

Combinationdecide Millwall will not field reserve teams on Saturdays next season.

(LOB) (??will decide)

However the money {is shared /??will be shared}, some people will be dissatisfied.

The subclauses in these examples function as adverbials that combine a

conces-sive aspect of meaning with a conditional one Thus,whatever the F C decide

means ‘if decision A is made, and if decision B is made, and also if decision C

is made, etc.’ As a matter of fact, concessive clauses have a conditional

conno-tation (and therefore use the Pseudo-t0-System) when they do not refer to the

actualization of a single situation but imply the actualization of one of several

alternative situations Concessive clauses that do not satisfy this condition for

a conditional connotation use the Absolute Future System to refer to

post-present actualization:

The posting of the code will not cause any immediate and catastrophic loss of money

to the DVD media creators, whatever they will crow in the media (www) (The

meaning is purely concessive: ‘even though they will crow something in the media,

whatever that may be’.)

10.7.7 The Pseudo-t0-System is also the rule in subclauses of proportion:

The sooner the job {is finished /??will be finished}, the better

The more people we {tell / ??will tell} about it, the more difficult it will be to keep

it secret

11 The following are some exceptional examples in which the Absolute Future System is

used (The Pseudo-t 0 System could be used too.)

The leaders of their union⫺ whoever they will be at that time ⴚ will join the chorus

of mainstream labour leaders in deploring privatization (www)

[The level of supervision needs to be related to the level of responsibility you give

them.] Whatever theywill be doing, you will get better results out of them if you give

them some early support (www)

Here again the conditional connotation appears to be the reason for the choice

of the Pseudo-t0-System We can paraphraseThe more people we tell, the more difficult it will be to keep it secret as follows: ‘If we tell X number of people,

it will be X amount difficult to keep it secret, and if we tell X⫹1 number of people, it will be X⫹1 amount difficult to keep it secret’

10.7.8 Subclauses of manner that are fully integrated into the head clause also use the Pseudo-t0-System:

I hope that next time you will do as I {say /?will say}

Here again there is a conditional connotation: ‘I hope that if I tell you to do something, you will do it’

The Pseudo-t0-System is not used at all in subclauses such as adversative clauses, comment clauses, nonrestrictive relative clauses, concessive subclauses introduced by(al)though, subclauses of reason introduced by for, and in some

types of conditional subclauses The following give an example of each (The

# sign indicates the unsuitability of a Pseudo-t0-System form rather than un-grammaticality.)

(8a) I’ll be in London tomorrow, {whereas / while} Bill {will be / #is} at home (adversative subclause)

(8b) As you {will see / #see}, he will not come tomorrow (comment clause)

(8c) I will give it to Tom, who {will be / #is} glad to get it (nonrestrictive rela-tive clause)

(8d) We had better put off discussing this matter until next week, when wewill have

more information.(when-clause used as nonrestrictive relative clause: when ⫽

‘at which time’)12 (8e) I will accept the invitation, although I {will not enjoy / #do not enjoy} the

con-cert

(8f) You will notice very few changes in the person that you see, for I will be the person that I always have been (www)(The for-clause is like an ‘evidential’ because-clause ⫺ see 10.6.4 above: it expresses the speaker’s justification for thinking what’s expressed in the first clause.)

(8g) If, as you say, Bill will be coming here himself next week, I will not need to

send him a letter.(conditional clause expressing a closed condition)

12 The Absolute Future System is obligatory in nonrestrictive relative time clauses This means that thewhen-clause of sentences like I will repair the car tomorrow, when I have more time is not a relative clause but an adverbial one (which is used in apposition

totomorrow).