Collins Cobuild English Grammar (97 page)

4.107
  You can also be more general by stating the relationship between an event and a period of time or specific point in time.

Before
,
prior to
, and
after
are used to relate events to a time.

She gets up
before six
.
If you’re stuck, come back and see me
before Thursday
. …the construction of warships by the major powers
prior to 1914
.
City Music Hall is going to close down
after Easter
.
He will announce his plans
after the holidays
.

They can also be used to relate one event to another.

I was in a bank for a while
before the war
.
She gave me much helpful advice
prior to my visit to Turkey
.
Jack left
after breakfast
.
He was killed in a car accident
four years after their marriage
.
After much discussion
, they had decided to take the coin to a jeweller.

Following
,
previous to
and
subsequent to
can also be used with events.

He has regained consciousness
following a stroke
.
He suggests that Ross was prompted
previous to the parade
.
The testimony and description of one witness would be supplied prior to the interview; those of the other two
subsequent to it
.

order of events

4.108
  
Before
and
after
can also be used to show the order of events when the same person does two actions or two people do the same action.

I should have talked about that
before anything else
.
He knew Nell would probably be home
before him
.
I do the floor
after the washing-up
.

You can also sometimes use
earlier than
or
later than
.

Smiling develops
earlier than laughing
.

events that happen at the same time

4.109
  To indicate that two or more events happen at the same time, the adverbs
together
and
simultaneously
, or the adverbials
at the same time
and
at once
can be used:

Everything had happened
together
.
His fear and his hate grew
simultaneously
.
Can you love two women
at the same time
?
I can’t be everywhere
at once
.

linking adverbs

4.110
  You can also show what order things happen in using adverbs such as
first
,
next
, and
finally
.
Simultaneously
and
at the same time
are used in a similar way to link clauses. This is dealt with in paragraph
10.53
.

by
for specific time

4.111
  
By
is used to emphasize that an event occurs at some time before a specific time, but not later.
By
is also used to indicate that a process is completed or reaches a particular stage not later than a specific time.

By eleven o’clock
, Brody was back in his office.
The theory was that
by Monday
their tempers would have cooled.
By next week
, there will be no supplies left.
Do you think we’ll get to the top of this canyon
by tomorrow
?
By now
the moon was up.
But
by then
he was bored with the project.

Extended uses of time adverbials

4.112
  Time adverbials can be used after the noun phrase to specify events or periods of time.

I’m afraid the meeting
this afternoon
exhausted me.
The sudden death of his father
on 17 November 1960
was not a surprise. …until I started to recall the years
after the Second World War
.
No admissions are permitted in the hour
before closing time
.

Clock times, periods of the day, days of the week, months, dates, seasons, special periods of the year, years, decades, and centuries can be used as modifiers before the noun phrase to specify things.

Every morning he would set off right after the
eight o’clock
news.
Castle was usually able to catch the
six thirty-five
train from Euston.
He boiled the kettle for his
morning
tea.
He learned that he had missed the
Monday
flight.
I had
summer
clothes and
winter
clothes.
Ash had spent the
Christmas
holidays at Pelham Abbas.

Possessive forms can also be used.

…a discussion of
the day’s events
.
It was Jim Griffiths, who knew nothing of
the morning’s happenings
.
The story will appear in
tomorrow’s paper
.
This week’s batch of government statistics
added to the general confusion over the state of the economy.

Frequency and duration

4.113
  Here is a list of units of time that are used when you are showing how often something happens, or how long it lasts or takes:

moment

second

minute

hour

day

night

week

fortnight

month

year

decade

century

Fortnight
is used only in the singular.
Moment
is not used with numbers because it does not refer to a precise period of time, so you cannot say for example
It took five moments
.

    
Fortnight
is not used in American English, where
two weeks
is used instead.

Words for periods of the day, days of the week, months of the year, and seasons are also used, such as
morning
,
Friday
,
July
, and
winter
.

Clock times may also be used.

Talking about how frequently something happens

4.114
  Some adverbials show approximately how many times something happens:

again and again

a lot

all the time

always

constantly

continually

continuously

ever

frequently

from time to time

hardly ever

infrequently

intermittently

much

never

normally

occasionally

often

over and over

periodically

rarely

regularly

repeatedly

seldom

sometimes

sporadically

usually

I
never
did my homework on time.
Sometimes
I wish I was back in Africa.
We were
always
being sent home.
He laughed
a lot
.

Never
is a negative adverb.

She
never
goes abroad.

Ever
is only used in questions, negative clauses, and
if
-clauses.

Have you
ever
been to a concert?

Much
is usually used with
not
.

The men did
n’t
talk
much
to each other.

Some adverbs of frequency such as
often
and
frequently
can also be used in the comparative and superlative.

Disasters can be prevented
more often
than in the past.
I preached much
more often
than that.
They cried for their mothers
less often
than might have been expected. …the mistakes that we make
most frequently
.

USAGE NOTE