I. Adverbial
before
-clauses 735
It was a long time before all the cases had been unpacked.
[These laws were then ratified, although] it was a long time before custom had
obtained the vigor and effect of law. (www)
[The stockpiling of treatment began and] it was a long time before enough had been
stored. (www)
The past perfect situations are obviously interpreted as t
0
-factual. If we want
to do no more than represent the before-clause situation as not-yet-factual (i. e.
put emphasis on the fact that the unpacking was not yet a fact at the relevant
situation time) we have to use the conditional perfect (usually in combination
with the conditional tense in the head clause):
[John looked at the cases in despair.] It would still be a long time before all of them
would have been unpacked.
If the distance measured is not between the contextually given past orientation
time and the end of the before-clause situation but between the orientation
time and the beginning of the situation of the before-clause, there are three
possible tense combinations:
[Bill looked at the clock in despair. It was three-thirty. The car carrying his rescuers
had left Inverness at two, so] it was still at least an hour before they would arrive.
[Bill looked at the clock in despair. It was three-thirty. The car carrying his rescuers
had left Inverness at two, so] it would still be at least an hour before they arrived.
(Arrived is a relative past tense form.)
[Bill looked at the clock in despair. It was three-thirty. The car carrying his rescuers
had left Inverness at two, so] it would still be at least an hour before they would
arrive. (indirect binding)
The following are some attested examples:
[There were no problems with that, but] there was still like an hour before the boat

would be leaving, [so we walked around a bit, looked in the shops, ] (www)
[It was well into dark and Murphy had deduced that] it would be still a few hours
before someone in Four Corners was wise to Tanner’s absence. (www)
It would be still more years, however, before we would see the Church of Finland
come together in unity and commitment to make a disciple of their homeland.
(www)
14.12 Counterfactual before-clauses
14.12.1 As noted in 14.6.6, a not-yet-factual before-clause can receive a t
0
-
counterfactual interpretation from the pragmatics of the context. One possibil-
ity is that it is the context following the sentence with the before-clause that
imposes a counterfactual reading, as in
736 14. Adverbial before-clauses and after-clauses
I saw her before she had seen me. [So I quickly turned into a side street and managed
to escape unseen.]
Another possibility is that the actualization of the before-clause situation is
prevented by the actualization of the head clause situation:
She burnt the letter before I had read it.
In the latter case the past perfect in the nonstative before-clause could in prin-
ciple be replaced by the past tense because the factual reading suggested by the
past tense is anyhow pragmatically excluded. However, in sentences like the
following the past tense is often judged unacceptable because it primarily sug-
gests the nonsensical reading on which the before-clause situation did actualize:
The letter was destroyed before I {had read /
?
read} it.
Before we {had gone /
??
went} far the car broke down.

On the other hand, sentences like the following are quite common:
The car broke down before we got very far.
He died before I could tell him the news.
14.12.2 As noted in 14.6.14, a before-clause can receive a counterfactual read-
ing from the use of the conditional perfect, provided before is preceded by a
measure phrase:
He died the day before he would have married Eileen.
The measure phrase is necessary because it helps the hearer to identify the time
when the counterfactual situation was expected to actualize. (This information
cannot be conveyed by a time-specifying adverbial if the before-clause is in the
conditional perfect: *He died before he would have married Eileen last Satur-
day. This is in keeping with the fact that He died the day before he would have
married Eileen means ‘He died the day before the time at which he would have
married Eileen’. It is not possible to insert last Saturday into the relative clause
of this paraphrase either.)
14.13 Not-yet-factual before-clauses
14.13.1 In a sense all before-clauses are not-yet-factual because ‘not yet B
when A’ logically follows from ‘A before B’. In this trivial sense, t
0
-factual
before-clauses and counterfactual before-clauses are also not-yet-factual. What
we will be dealing with in this section are before-clauses that are not-yet-
factual-at-t without also being t
0
-factual or t
0
-counterfactual.
14.13.2 In section 14.6.5 we have seen that there is a special tense we can use
to represent the before-clause situation as not-yet-factual, viz. the past perfect.
I. Adverbial

before
-clauses 737
In nonstative before-clauses this tense is used instead of the past tense, because
the past tense implicates t
0
-factuality:
It is also worth noting that the t
0
-factual implicature of the past tense is a
very strong one. Though it can be blocked by the context, it cannot be can-
celled by an addition to the contrary. The following is unacceptable because it
is interpreted as contradictory (and hence nonsensical):
*I left before John arrived, but he didn’t arrive.
In Gricean terms, this means that the t
0
-factual sense of the past tense in the
before-clause is a conventional implicature rather than a conversational one.
14.13.3 In 14.11.6 we have discussed the cleft-like construction It was not
long before they reached the capital, in which the before-clause refers to a
factual past situation. There is a similar, but this time existential construction-
like, type of sentence in which the before-clause explicitly represents its situa-
tion as not-yet-factual:
[Adam yawned, and looked at the clock above the entrance to the North Library.]
There was still a long time to go before his books would arrive. (BM)
There’s still a long time to go before the others will be here.
Note that the use of would and will in this type of before-clause is rather
special. If both clauses of a sentence with a before-clause refer to the post-
present (e. g. I will leave before he arrives), both situations are represented as
expected (predicted) rather than as t
0

-factual. It follows that as a rule the head
clause uses an absolute (ϭ Absolute Future System) tense form to establish the
post-present domain, while the before-clause uses a relative (ϭ Pseudo-t
0
-Sys-
tem) form. The reason is that a prediction creates an opaque (intensional)
context and that, as argued in 10.4.6, an intensional domain functions as a
temporal domain: whatever situation is to be interpreted intensionally must
normally be incorporated into the intensional domain, i. e. must be expressed
by a relative tense form. In the case of post-present domains, this means that
the subclause must as a rule use a Pseudo-t
0
-System form. In fact, the latter
System is quite possible in examples like the above ones:
And there’s a long time to go before the Federal election is called, so anything could
happen. (www)
Because there is some time before this new methodology is put in place, [now is an
opportune time to design a system that will …]. (www)
Irrespective of which System is used, the head clause can also be in the future
tense:
There will be some time before the others will be here.
[Since these standards were remanded to EPA by a federal court in May 1999,] there
will be some time before the exact form of the standards is known. (www)
738 14. Adverbial before-clauses and after-clauses
In sum, the following four constructions can all be used without a clear differ-
ence of meaning:
[It’s five o’clock now.] There will be some time before the others will be here.
[It’s five o’clock now.] There will be some time before the others are here.
[It’s five o’clock now.] There is still some time before the others will be here.
[It’s five o’clock now.] There is still some time before the others are here.

E. A comparison between
before
and
until
Sections 14.14Ϫ16 are devoted to until-clauses, which show many similarities with
adverbial before-clauses, but are ‘bifunctional’ (ϭ indicating duration and time) rather
than purely time-specifying.
Like before, until expresses (or at least implies) anteriority. The main difference
between before and until is that before-clauses function as pure time-specifying
adverbials whereas until-clauses function as ‘bifunctional temporal adverbials’
(see 2.22.3), i. e. they indicate duration as well as time. The other distinctions
that can be made between the two types of clause follow from this basic differ-
ence.
14.14 The semantics of the conjunction until
14.14.1 Until is interpreted as ‘until the time at which’. Diachronically, it has
developed from an old English phrase ‘until the time that’ via Middle English
until that. This means that there is an implicit orientation time (which, as in
the case of before-clauses, we can refer to as the ‘Anchor time’) in its semantics.
As in the case of before, this Anchor time is the final point of the Adv-time (ϭ
the period indicated by the until-clause). The basic difference between an until-
clause and a before-clause is that while the latter is a pure time-specifying
adverbial, an until-clause is a ‘bifunctional adverbial’ (see 2.22.3): it both estab-
lishes an Adv-time and indicates the duration of the full head clause situation.
For example:
Jim stayed in the pub until Prudence came in.
The head clause situation is said to last till Prudence came in. The until-clause
indicates an Adv-time which coincides with the situation time of the head
clause. The situation time of the head clause coincides with the time of the full
situation because the head clause situation is made bounded by the addition of
I. Adverbial

before
-clauses 739
the until-clause, which specifies the end of the head clause situation. In sum,
the until-clause is a duration adverbial because it specifies the length of the full
head clause situation, and it is a time-specifying adverbial because it specifies
an Adv-time which contains the situation time of the head clause in terms of
coincidence. It is therefore a bifunctional adverbial. The Adv-time is a definite
period because it is ‘anchored’ (see 12.1.1) by the fact that its endpoint is
specified. This endpoint (ϭ Anchor time) may be the situation time of the
until-clause or another orientation time binding the situation time of the until-
clause Ϫ see 14.15.2 below.
14.14.2 Because an until-clause is a bifunctional adverbial, the contained ori-
entation time of the head clause coincides with the Adv-time. It follows that
the situation time of the head clause must as a rule be the contained orientation
time of the head clause. The only possible (but very marginal) exception is
when the situation time of the head clause is represented as T-posterior to the
contained orientation time by means of be about to or be going to:
Until John said everything was safe again, his men were about to shoot at anything
that moved.
14.15 The tenses used in head clause and until-clause
As far as tenses are concerned, until-clauses allow the following possibilities:
14.15.1 If the reference is to the past, both the head clause and the until-
clause can create a domain of their own. This is not possible when the reference
is to the post-present:
I was there until Bill came back.
*I will be there until John will be back.
In the former example, both verb forms are absolute tense forms. Both situa-
tions are therefore interpreted as t
0
-factual. See Figure 14.11.

Figure 14.11. The temporal structure of I was there until Bill came back.
14.15.2 When the situation time of the head clause is interpreted as W-poste-
rior to another orientation time, the until-clause forms part of an ‘intensional
740 14. Adverbial before-clauses and after-clauses
domain’ (see 10.4.6). In that case the situation time of the until-clause must be
T-bound by the implicit Anchor time:
[Bill said] he would stay in the pub until Jill {arrived /*would arrive}. (ϭ ‘He
would stay in the pub until the time of Jill’s arrival.’) (The until-clause represents
its situation time as T-simultaneous with the implicit Anchor time. It is not possible
to effect indirect binding by representing the situation time of the until-clause as T-
posterior to the situation time of the head clause.)
[Bill said] he would stay in the pub until Jill {had arrived /*would have arrived}.
(ϭ ‘He would stay in the pub until such time as Jill had already arrived.’) (The
until-clause represents its situation time as T-anterior to the implicit Anchor time.
It is not possible to effect indirect binding by T-relating the situation time of the
until-clause to the situation time of the head clause by using would have arrived.)
She intended to stay up until her husband {came /*would come / had come /*would
have come} home.
The same system applies if the verb of the head clause itself evokes the idea of
a W-posterior until-clause situation, as in the following example:
I was waiting until the others {came /*would come / had come /*would have
come} home. (ϭ ‘I was waiting for the others to {come / have come} home.’)
When the head clause refers to the post-present, it automatically creates an
intensional domain. It is therefore predictable that the until-clause will use the
Pseudo-t
0
-System to relate the situation time of the until-clause to the implicit
Anchor time:
I will postpone the meeting until we {have /*will have / have received /*will have
received} more information.

Please stay here until the doctor {comes /*will come}.
When the head clause uses a verb like wait, it can refer to the present while
the until-clause still refers to the post-present. In that case too, the until-clause
uses the Pseudo-t
0
-System:
I am waiting until the others {come /*will come / have come /*will have come}
home.
In examples like this, the central orientation time of the post-present domain
is an ‘implicit’ (see 2.14) orientation time.
14.15.3 The choice between the past tense and the present perfect in the head
clause of an until-clause has been dealt with in 12.13.
14.16 The semantics of not … until
When the head clause is negative, there are in principle two possible inter-
pretations of
not … until
. The first is that the until-clause has its usual func-
I. Adverbial
before
-clauses 741
tion of specifying both an Adv-time (containing the situation time of the head
clause) and the duration of the full head clause situation:
[“For how long didn’t he speak to you?”] Ϫ “He didn’t speak to me until I addressed
him myself.”
Here the reference is to a negative situation, viz. the situation of his not saying
a word to me. Such a negative situation can be located in time with the help
of an until-clause.
In many cases, however, the not in the head clause does not really negate
the head clause, so that there is no reference to a negative head clause situation.
Instead, not is directly combined with until in interpretation, and not … until

is interpreted as specifying a time which is seen as later than might have been
expected:
Jim didn’t arrive until five.
The primary idea here is not ‘Jim’s not arriving lasted until five’ but rather
‘Jim only arrived at five’, or ‘It was as late as five when Jim arrived’. In this
interpretation, the until-clause is not a bifunctional adverbial any more: it does
not specify the duration of the full head clause situation but merely functions
as a time-specifying adverbial. More specifically, it says at what time Jim ar-
rived. The same is true if until is used as a conjunction rather than as a preposi-
tion:
I didn’t leave the office until I had replied to all my e-mails. (ϭ ‘It was only after I
had replied to all my e-mails that I left the office.’) (The situation time of the until-
clause is represented as T-anterior to the Anchor time.)