Phrasal complements of before and after

In (1-a), the complement of before/after is an expression denoting a time, while it denotes an event in (1-b). Before and after can also take clausal complements, as in (1-c). Finally, (1-d) illustrates that what looks superficially like a DP denoting an individual can also serve as complement. The literature on before and after has focused on cases like (1-b) and (1-c) (Pratt and Francez, 2001; von Stechow, 2002; Beaver and Condoravdi, 2003; Artstein, 2005). Instances of before and after like (1-d), where the complement is prima facie a DP denoting an individual, have received little attention. One of the few places where the construction is discussed is von Stechow and Beck (2007). This analysis is in the context of pluriactionality, in terms of events and not easily compared with the approach taken in this paper, which is in temporal terms. Such phrasal complements of before/after pose interesting challenges for the syntax/semantics interface. Their analysis is themain concern of this paper. The question, in particular, arises whether the complement in (1-d) is really just a DP, or whether it is underlyingly clausal and reduced by ellipsis. That is, whether (1-d) really corresponds to (2).