Reminisce past tense
The conjunction antequam is more common than priusquam in Cicero, and was used to an extent by Livy, but is almost completely avoided by Caesar, Nepos, and Sallust. The following table shows the relative use of postquam and posteāquam "after" and antequam and priusquam "before":įrom this table it can be seen that Cicero had a clear preference for posteāquam, while the other authors preferred postquam.
Caesar made relatively little use of postquam compared with the other authors.
Conversely, Nepos and the two poets make frequent use of ut, but it is never used by Sallust. Sallust used ubi more than any other of the conjunctions, but it was avoided by Nepos. The table shows that the narrative cum with the subjunctive is very common in Caesar and Nepos, but little used by the other three authors. The figures for cum here are for clauses of time only, omitting causal or concessive ones. The figures for posteāquam and simulac are included with postquam and simulatque. The conjunctions are cum "when, while", postquam "after", ubi "when", ut "as, as soon as, when", simulatque "as soon as". The table below shows the number of temporal clauses for some of the most common conjunctions in three historians of the republican period, Julius Caesar, Cornelius Nepos, and Sallust, and two poets of the following generation, Virgil and Ovid. Roman authors differ from one another in style, and this is shown among other things by their preference for different conjunctions. "whenever they win, they make a sacrifice"Ī third classification is whether the main verb and hence the sentence as a whole is situated in past, present, or future time.Ī fourth method of classification, followed in this article, is according to the different conjunctions used. "he left before I had a chance to speak"Ī second way of classifying temporal clauses is whether the sentence refers to a definite time, as in the above examples, or is iterative, describing a generalisation or repeated action at an indefinite time:Į.g. The temporal clause event did not happen:Į.g.The action of the temporal clause is subsequent to that of the main verb: The temporal clause defines the end-point of a situation:Ĭ.The temporal clause defines the start-point of a situation:Į.g."he was sleeping, when suddenly they arrived" The main clause situation is interrupted by a temporal clause eventĮ.g.The temporal clause event occurs during the main clause situation:.
So in a sentence such as "after I had said this, he went out", the first clause is a temporal clause. A temporal clause is an adverbial clause of time, that is to say, a clause which informs the reader about the time when the action of main verb of the sentence occurred.