The grammar of the english verb phrase part 108 pot

Whereas abefore-clause specifies an Adv-time leading up to an ‘Anchor time’ which either is the situation time of thebefore-clause or binds the situa-tion time of the before-clause, an

II Adverbial after-clauses

The temporal structure of the conjunctionafter is represented by Figure 14.12.

14.17 The temporal structure of after

14.17.1 In the same way asbefore means ‘before the time when’, the

conjunc-tionafter 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 wordtime refers to the Anchor time, which is the initial point

of the Adv-time (When abefore-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 abefore-clause specifies an Adv-time leading up to an ‘Anchor

time’ (which either is the situation time of thebefore-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.)

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 thebefore-clause (⫽ the time of the policemen’s arrival) is here represented

as T-anterior to the Anchor time that is implicit in the conjunctionbefore (and

lexicalizes asthe time in the paraphrase ‘before the time that’), while the

situa-tion time of the after-clause (⫽ the time of the policemen’s arrival) is

repre-sented as T-anterior to the Anchor time that is implicit in the conjunctionafter

(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 theafter-clause refer to the post-present, the

situation time of theafter-clause is related to the implicit Anchor time by means

of a Pseudo-t0-System form:

He will repair the sink after he {comes / *will come / has come / *will have come}

home

This means that, likebefore-clauses, adverbial after-clauses sometimes use

rela-tive tenses However, as in the case of before-clauses (see Bill left before I arrived in 14.4.2⫺5), 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 conjunctionafter establishes an Adv-time

whose starting point is the ‘Anchor time’ which lexicalizes asthe time in the

paraphrase ‘after the time that’ This Anchor time may be either the situation time of theafter-clause (as in He left after I arrived) or an implicit orientation

time to which the situation time of theafter-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 inHe will repair the sink after he has come home).

14.17.3 When theafter-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 (⫽ ‘(five minutes) after he had finished doing his homework’)

Because of this ‘terminative’ interpretation of theafter-clause, we cannot

nor-mally use the past progressive form in theafter-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 (⫽ 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 theafter-clause situation and the situation time of the head

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 5.2.2⫺3) 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 t0 That

pre-present period is measured byfor 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?!

Theafter-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 phrasetwo 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 theafter-clause is the

An-chor time

The manshot himself after he killed his wife and children (The situation time of

the head clause is included in the Adv-time.)

Hewas 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 thebefore-clause in He left before I arrived in 14.4.2⫺5.

Likebefore-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 T-anteriority relation between the two situation times is expressed twice: by the conjunc-tionafter and by the tense of the after-clause.

[I hoped that] my brotherwould 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.)

Heleft long after I had arrived.

Here too, theafter-clause has to use a Pseudo-t0-System form when it refers to the post-present:

John will go home after the pubhas 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.

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 hewas 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 manhad 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 hekilled 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 hewas suddenly going to

become a doctor after he was going to become an engineer (⫽ ‘John first said he

was going to be an engineer, but then suddenly said he was going to study

medi-cine.’)

A week after Johnwas 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 t0-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:

Ileft after John arrived, not vice versa.

Johnbought a gun after somebody broke into his house.

Cherrythrew 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 theafter-clause.

(b) The speaker will use the past perfect in the after-clause if he wants to

represent the situation time of theafter-clause as T-anterior to the situation

time of the head clause

Ileft after John had arrived.

Johnbought 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 theafter-clause is interpreted as t0-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 t0-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 (⫽ ‘after the

time that’):

[He had decided] he would do it after the othersleft.

He would do it after the othersleft (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 othershad 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