The grammar of the english verb phrase part 110 doc

Adverbial before-clauses and after-clauses14.22 Summary of the discussion of after-clauses 14.22.1 The most common tense configurations in sentences consisting of a head clause and an af

756 14 Adverbial before-clauses and after-clauses

14.22 Summary of the discussion of after-clauses

14.22.1 The most common tense configurations in sentences consisting of

a head clause and an after-clause referring to the past are illustrated by the

following sentences:

John arrived after Mary left

John arrived after Mary had left

InJohn arrived after Mary left, the two situations are interpreted as t0-factual This means that both preterite forms are absolute tense forms establishing two separate domains The temporal W-relation between the two central orienta-tion times is expressed byafter.

In John arrived after Mary had left, there is only one past domain,

estab-lished by arrived Mary’s leaving is represented as T-anterior to this central

orientation time (arrived) by had left That John’s arrival followed Mary’s

leaving is also expressed by after John’s arrival is interpreted as t0-factual becausearrived is an absolute past tense, and Mary’s leaving is also interpreted

as t0-factual because what precedes a t0-factual situation must also be t0 -fac-tual The temporal structure ofJohn arrived after Mary had left is represented

by Figure 14.18

Figure 14.18 The temporal structure of John arrived after Mary had left.

When the reference is to the post-present, the corresponding sentences are the following:

John will arrive after Mary leaves

John will arrive after Mary has left

In both cases there is only one post-present domain, established bywill arrive.

The situation time of theafter-clause is bound by the implicit Anchor time in

terms of T-simultaneity (leaves) or, more frequently, T-anteriority (has left) In

other words, only the head clause can use the Absolute Future System; the

after-clause has to use the Pseudo-t0-System

III Summary 757

14.22.2 If the time of the head clause situation is represented as T-posterior

to an orientation time in a past domain, the situation time of the after-clause

cannot also be represented as T-posterior to the orientation time in question

Instead, the situation time of theafter-clause must as a rule be represented as

W-simultaneous with the implicit Anchor time:

[I knew that] John would leave the country after he {graduated / *would graduate}.

This means that the situation time of theafter-clause cannot be represented as

T-posterior to the situation time of the matrix clause (to which the situation

time of the head clause is T-posterior) by means of the conditional tense Like

other English adverbial time clauses, after-clauses do not allow this form of

indirect binding This restriction on using the conditional tense also applies to

the conditional perfect:

[I knew that] John would leave the country after he {had graduated / *would have

graduated}.

In this case too the situation time of the after-clause must be T-related to the

implicit Anchor time (which after represents as W-posterior to the situation

time of the head clause)

In a similar way, an after-clause whose situation time is interpreted as

W-posterior to the situation time of the head clause uses the Pseudo-t0-System

rather than the Absolute Future System:

John will leave the country after he {graduates / *will graduate / has graduated /

*will have graduated}.

Notes:

(a) The words underlined figure as separate entries in the glossary.

(b) Hyphens have been disregarded in the alphabetic ordering For example,

‘situation-time adverbial’ follows ‘situation time’ and precedes ‘situation type’.

Absolute deictic time-specifying adverbial: time-specifying adverbial which

in-dicates an Adv-time that is anchored to the temporal zero-point, e g today, this morning, tomorrow, tonight, yesterday, three weeks ago, since last week, until now, etc.

Absolute Future System: system of tense forms used to establish a (new)

tempo-ral domain in the post-present time-zone This system comprises the future tense (in its use as an absolute tense rather than as a pseudo-absolute tense) (e g.I {will / shall} probably be there), as well as other verb forms locating a

situation time in the post-present (i e ‘futurish’ forms, as in I’m going to do it) and absolute-relative tenses such as the future perfect or the (nameless)

tenses built withwill have been going to or will be going to.

Absolute past tense (or absolute past or absolute preterite): past tense which

creates a past domain The semantics of this tense is: ‘The situation time is located in the past time-sphere (which is defined relative to the temporal zero-point)’

Absolute present tense: present tense used as an absolute tense (i e used to

locate the situation time at the real temporal zero-point) rather than as a pseudo-absolute tense (locating the situation time at a pseudo-zero-point)

Absolute preterite: see absolute past tense.

Absolute relation: temporal relation between the temporal zero-point and some

other time

Absolute-relative tense: tense which combines the expression of the meaning

of an absolute tense with the expression of a temporal relation in a temporal domain (see relative tense), in other words, a tense which both establishes a temporal domain and indicates a T-relation in it A typical example is the future perfect (e g.I will have left) which expresses two T-relations: ‘The time

of the situation is anterior to an implicit time of orientation’ and ‘the implicit time of orientation is posterior to the temporal zero-point’ Other

absolute-760 Glossary

relative tenses are such (nameless) present time-sphere tenses as are built with

has been going to or will be going to (and, at least theoretically, has been going

to have V-ed and will have been going to have V-ed).

Absolute tense: tense expressing an absolute relation, i e which locates the

time of a situation in one of the four absolute time-zones and in doing so relates it directly to the temporal zero-point The preterite (e g I did it), the

present perfect (e g I have done it), the present tense (e g I’m doing it) and

the future tense (e g I’ll do it) locate the situation time in the past, the

pre-present, the present and the post-pre-present, respectively

Absolute time-zone: cover term for any of the four time-zones that are defined

in direct relation to the temporal zero-point, namely the past time-zone, the pre-present time-zone, the present time-zone and the post-present time-zone (‘Time-zone’ is a cover term for any of the four portions of the linguistic time line that together make up the two time-spheres These four portions are the three parts of the present time-sphere (viz the pre-present zone, the present zone and the post-present zone) plus the past time-sphere, which functions as

a single zone Since these four zones are defined in direct relation to the tempo-ral zero-point, we call them ‘absolute’ time-zones.)

Absolute zone: see absolute time-zone.

Action: type of dynamic situation (or ‘dynamic situation type’) which actualizes

under the control of an agent (e g.John dug a hole).

Action verb: verb denoting an action, e g. walk, read, drink, look at, write, eat, abandon, ask, play.

Actual world: possible world that is the real world, i e the world in which

things are the way they are in the real world as we know it

Actualization: noun related in its form and meaning to the verb actualize It is

the cover term used in this work for the performance of an action, the develop-ing of a process, the holddevelop-ing of a state or the happendevelop-ing of an event In all four cases we speak of the ‘actualization’ of the situation in question

Actualization adverbial: indefinite time expression which does not inherently

indicate a particular Adv-time but refers to the (non)actualization of a situation

in a particular period, e g already, always, not yet, ever, never, still, etc.

Actualization aspect: linguistic category pertaining to whether the actualization

of the situation referred to is or is not represented as bounded (i e as reaching

an endpoint)

Actualization-explaining because -clause: clause which is introduced by the

sub-ordinating conjunction because and which expresses the reason for, or the

Glossary 761

cause of, the actualization of the head clause situation For example: [He was

killed] because he knew too much.

Actualization focus: term used in the discussion of the past tense, more

specifi-cally in cases where the speaker is concerned with some aspect of the

actualiza-tion of the bygone situaactualiza-tion (e g when, where, how, etc it actualized), rather

than with its relevance to the present structure of the world, as is the case

when the present perfect is used

Actualize: verb used as cover term for the predicates that are typically

associ-ated with the four types of situation If we wish to avoid having to specify

whether a clause expresses the performance of an action, the happening of an

event, the development of a process or the existence of a state, we say that the

clause in question expresses the actualization of a situation Contrary to

com-mon usage, the verbactualize is used intransitively (in a similar way to happen,

but referring more generally to the actualization of any of the four types of

situ-ation)

Adjectival clause: subclause forming part of a noun phrase and modifying the

noun head (e g [The man] who lives next door [is looking at our house]) An

adjectival clause is always a relative clause or a participial clause

Adverbial clause: subclause whose function is typically associated with that of

an adverb or adverbial phrase (e g [I’ll help you] when I have time).

Adv-time: abbreviation of ‘adverbially indicated time’ Thus, inWe left at five,

the Adv-time is specified by the adverbialat five.

Adv-time adverbial: time-specifying adverbial, i e adverbial indicating an

Adv-time

Adv-time of the head clause: in a complex sentence, the adverbially indicated

time ‘containing’ the situation time of the head clause (in terms of inclusion or

coincidence) For example, the sentenceJohn left when Bill was in the kitchen

tells us that there was a time in the past at which Bill was in the kitchen, and

that that time ‘contained’ the time at which John left

Adv-time of the { when / before / after }-clause: in a complex sentence with a

{when / before / after}-clause, the Adv-time containing the situation time of

the time clause situation For example, inJohn left when Bill arrived, the time

of Bill’s arrival is contained by the Adv-time specified by the wordwhen, which

is a headless relative that can be paraphrased as ‘at the time when’

Adv-time-relation: temporal relation between an Adv-time (⫽ adverbially

indi-cated time) and a situation time or other orientation time Such a relation can

only be one of ‘containment’, i e either coincidence or inclusion Thus, if there

762 Glossary

is an time relation between an time and a situation time, the Adv-time either coincides with the Adv-time of the (predicated) situation (as inJohn left

at five) or includes that time (as in John left yesterday).

Adv-time-simultaneity: containment relation (i e proper inclusion or strict

co-incidence) between an Adv-time and a situation time or other orientation time For example, inJohn left {yesterday / at five}, there is a relation of

Adv-time-simultaneity between the Adv-time (indicated by yesterday or at five) and the

situation time (⫽ the time of John’s leaving)

Agent: animate entity which performs or instigates a dynamic situation, i e.

which is responsible for the actualization of the situation because it does some-thing that induces the situation to actualize

Agentive: ontological feature of a situation-template (as expressed, for

exam-ple, by the verb phrase punched Bill on the nose) which requires an agent for

the actualization of the situation The situation itself is then also said to be agentive (e g John punched Bill on the nose) An agentive situation need not

involve intentionality, as when the agent does something accidentally, or under the influence of drugs, hypnosis, etc

Aktionsart: (synonym of ontological aspect or lexical aspect): linguistic

cat-egory pertaining to the way the lexical material in the verb phrase determines one or more inherent characteristics of a kind of situation (or, more correctly,

a situation-template) For example, a verb phrase may represent a kind of situa-tion as durative or punctual (compare, for example, run with arrive), as telic

or atelic, as dynamic or static, etc

Anchor time (or temporal anchor): the time to which an Adv-time is anchored,

i e the time functioning as deictic source for the temporal relation expressed

or implied by a deictic time-specifying adverbial In the case oftoday, yesterday, tomorrow, etc the Anchor time is the temporal zero-point In the case of that very same day, the next day, the day before, etc the Anchor time is not the

temporal zero-point but a contextually given bygone or future time In an

after-clause or a before-clause, the Anchor time is the initial or terminal point,

respectively, of the Adv-time indicated by the adverbial clause: the Anchor time

is the point referred to by the second occurrence of the wordtime in ‘at a time

{after / before} the time at which’, which is the semantic paraphrase of the

conjunction

Anchored time-specifying adverbial: see deictic time-specifying adverbial Anterior: adjective corresponding to the noun anteriority.

Anteriority: type of temporal relation A given time A is anterior to a given

time B if A either precedes B completely or starts before B and leads up to B