"soon before"

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On May 19, 2005, at 12:24 PM, Larry Horn wrote (in reply to Alison
Murie):

>> I have to admit that there is a nice economy to  "how soon before
>> X  was
>> Y?" vs. "how much earlier was Y than X",
>
> well, "how much before X was Y?" is equally economical, and "before"
> gives you the ordering...

"how long before" would also do, up to a point.

first, only up to a point, since "how long/much before" lacks the
component of shortness that "soon" conveys.

i've added two more informants who reject unmodified "soon before".
both accept "soon after".  one accepts "how soon before" without a
blink (this is pattern B).  the other is dubious about "how soon
before" (pattern C), but added that she couldn't think of how else to
say it: "how long/much before" doesn't convey shortness, and "how
shortly before" struck her (and me) as ungrammatical (i don't know
why, since "very shortly before" is ok).

second comment: "much" as a modifier of temporal subordinators (both
"before" *and* "after') is hugely less frequent than "long".  in
fact, "how much before/after" is a good deal less frequent than "how
soon before/after"!  (actually, i find "much before/after" only
marginally grammatical:

    "much before" -how: ca. 66,300  ("soon": 31,900; "long": 1,610,000)
    "how much before": ca. 4,340 ("soon": 20,300; "long": 548,000)

[the "much" numbers are actually inflated by a lot of examples in
which "much" is the last word of some constituent preceding the
temporal phrase.]

    "much after" -how: ca. 65,900 ("soon": 2,670,000; "long": 1,030,000)
    "how much after": ca. 4,170 ("soon": 86,400; "long": 123,000)


>> but, in spite of that, I *think* I
>> would still tend to avoid it.
>> "Soon"  seems to me to have a kind of afterness in it, so I have
>> no problem
>> with "soon after."

well, OED2's main definition of "soon" is "within a short time (after
a particular point of time specified or implied)", which has both
shortness and afterness in it (and a reference point).

so it's not surprising that some people have trouble with "soon
before".  but it's clear that other people allow (in some contexts)
an extension of the meaning of "soon", without the afterness
component, but keeping the shortness component.  the question is: in
what contexts?

(further note: if "after" isn't involved in this at all, then there
are only three patterns to consider: A, B, and C on my earlier list.)

>> It would be constrained by the fixedness of  the
>> events.  That is, I wouldn't say, "How soon after your party was
>> the Fourth
>> of July?"  but could say "How soon after the Fourth was your
>> party?" or, of
>> course, ..."will your party be?"

this is, presumably, a fact about reference points, not about the
syntax or semantics of "after" (or "before").  ceteris paribus, the
Fourth of July is a culturally more salient reference point than
someone's party.

arnold