Clauses of Time (Temporal Clauses)

The number of conjunctions used to introduce temporal clauses is very considerable, and it seems to be growing still at the ex-pense of nouns denoting time units, with the definite article, such as the moment, the instant, etc. Temporal clauses are used much more frequently than clauses of space.

On the one hand, time relations are much more varied than space relations. If we want to indicate the time when an action occurred by referring it to another action, the time relations between the two may be various. The one action may be taking place at the very time when the other action was being carried out; or it may have begun a short while after the other action was finished, or it may have ended just as the other action was about to begin, etc., etc.

On the other hand, it is a very common occurrence to indicate the time of an action by referring it to the time of another action, with which it happens to be connected either by some causal link or by a coincidence in time. The speaker or writer may in many cases use this way of indicating the time of an action, rather than an adverbial modifier of time in a simple sentence (such as, at five o'clock, etc.), because the exact time may be either unknown (this especially refers to actions in the future), or irrelevant. The time relation between the action of the main clause and that of the subordinate clause may be expressed with a very great degree of exactness: the two actions may be simultaneous, or the one may precede the other, or follow it, or it may last until the other has begun, etc.

There is one more point to be noted here. The action of the head clause may be connected with that of the temporal clause by some causal tie, that is, if the action of the temporal clause did not take place, that of the main clause would not take place either; or the connection may be purely temporal, with no causal relation implied. This is especially characteristic of temporal clauses indicating natural phenomena, such as sunrise, sunset, etc., which are not the cause of anything happening in human relations but merely an external method of reckoning time as it passes. The cases of the first kind (with causal relation implied) are to be seen in the following examples: She made a little curtsy as he bowed... S he was busy enough, and on most nights her eyes closed the minute her head touched the pillow. A case of the second kind (with no causal relation implied) is seen in an example of a different character: As she stood hanging to the sill, a deafening explosion burst on her ears, louder than any cannon she had ever heard.

Occasionally a when- clauseindicates an action opposed to that of the main clause, rather than the time when that main action occurred: Where on earth was the double game, when you've behaved like such a saint? Here, too, it is the lexical meanings of the words which make the relation clear. Of course a when- clauseof this kind can only come after its head clause.

There are two more points to be mentioned in connection with temporal clauses, and they both bear on the temporal clause losing its subordinate character and tending to become independent of the clause with which it is connected.

One of these is the type of sentence which consists of a clause narrating some situation and followed by a when -clause telling of an event which burst into the situation and which is the central point of the whole sentence. Such a when -clause always comes after the main clause and this may be considered its grammatical peculiarity. A clear example of this type may be seen in the following sentence: Judith had just gone into her room and closed the door when she heard a man's voice in the parlour, and in a few minutes she heard the closing of Eve's bedroom door. It is quite clear here that the when- clausedoes not indicate the time when the action of the first clause took place but contains the statement which is the centre of the whole composite sentence. It is also evident that a when- clauseof this kind must necessarily come after the head clause within the composite sentence. Compare also the following passages: It was the middle of the August afternoon when Harry Emory got back to his office at the canning factory after lunch and he felt drowsy and sluggish and downright lazy in the summer heat. Once more, we see from the lexical meanings of the words that the when- clausedoes not indicate the time when the action of the other clause took place. It might indeed be argued that it is the other way round: the first clause indicates the time when the action of the when -clause took place. This way of constructing the sentence seems to be designed to lay the main stress on the time indication, that is, to mark it out as the rheme of the whole sentence.

The conjunction while, as is well known, expresses simultaneity of an action with another action. However, this meaning of simultaneity can, under certain conditions, change into a different meaning altogether. If, say, two people simultaneously perform quite different actions, possibly opposed to one another in character, this state of things may serve to characterise the two people as opposed to each other. This may be the meaning of a sentence like the following: Magnus briefly outlined the case for the independent sovereignty of Scotland, while Frieda listened without any remarkable interest. It is clear that the while-clause does not here express the time when the action of the first clause took place: it rather expresses an action opposed in its character to the first action, and in this much it serves to characterise the doer of the action. We might here put the conjunction and instead of while and the actual meaning would be the same, though the sentence would now be a compound one. Since, therefore, the function of the second clause is quite different from the usual function of a subordinate adverbial temporal clause, and since no purely grammatical peculiarities make it necessary to term the second clause a subordinate one, we may say that it is not subordinate and the sentence not complex.