ABSTRACT
This evidence suggests that when a word like after is followed by a finite verb (as in ‘after I saw her’) the dependency structure is the same as with that, which we looked at in the last unit: after/that has a following finite verb depending on it. Its presence signals that a subordinate clause is going to follow; or in more traditional terms, it ‘introduces a subordinate clause’. The example in Figure 8.1 contains two subordinate clauses, one inside the other (‘I left’ contained within ‘she arrived after I left’). Please notice that there is still no reason to think that after and that belong to the same word-class: one is a preposition, while the other is simply unclassifiable. Nor are we saying that after has as little meaning as that; on the contrary, it has just as much meaning-in fact, the same meaning-whether its dependent is a noun or a verb. All they have in common is the possibility of introducing a subordinate clause.
