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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on September 27, 2010 at 6:19pm

You can also say "before drinking" in English and the meaning is essentially the same. Indeed, in this particular case, I would be tempted to translate as "before drinking".

The reason for translating as "before he drank" is just that it turns out that in everyday English, speakers tend to use the conjugated form of the verb, whereas it turns out that in French, speakers don't tend to. Another similar example:

1 (a) Avant la mort de ma mère, je lui avais promis que...
1 (b) Avant que ma mère soit morte, je lui avais promis que...

2(a) Before the death of my mother, I promised her that...
2(b) Before my mother died, I promised her that...

Theoretically, each of these pairs mean pretty much the same thing. But it turns out that in French, speakers would tend to say option (a), whereas English speakers would tend to say option (b). Both options are theoretically grammatical in the two languages, it just turns out that which type of construction speakers prefer (conjugated or not) differs between the two languages.

In English, the non-conjugated option ("before the death of my mother", "Before drinking") tends to be more formal. From the use of the passé simple in your original phrase, I'm guessing the context is formal/literary, so that "Before drinking" would actually be appropriate in this case. But "Before he drank" is also not wrong, and sounds natural.

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Permalink Reply by nonick on September 27, 2010 at 8:32pm

Thank you very much for your fast answer Neil. Well, my English book points out that "before he drank" is equivalent to "avant de se mettre à boire (n'importe quoi)" and the gerundive has a general value.
That's why they differ in meaning and "before drinking" doesn't suit in that sentence... it's not clear to me but it seems to be the contrary of your answer :)
So I'm glad to learn my help book is totally wrong since I guess you're a native speaker...

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Permalink Reply by nonick on September 27, 2010 at 8:43pm

I got it now... I think it mentions the gerundive means "avant de se mettre à boire n'importe quoi" and the beverage is talked about several lines up. Does "before drinking" still suit in that case ?

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on September 28, 2010 at 1:54pm

I think what the author is saying-- and I think it's true to some extent, both in French and English-- is that you can use the gerundive, to refer to "non specific instances" of an activity more readily than with a conjugated verb, and so with the gernudive, you can omit the object more easily. For example, on the label for a medicine, it might say:

Take one tablet least 20 minutes before eating.

With the gerundive, there's no need to say "before eating anything"or "before you eat your neal" etc -- this is implied. If you were to use a conjugated verb, it would sound better to insert an object:

Take one tablet least 20 minutes before you eat anything.

However, there is the complicating factor that people are used to seeing gerundives in certain contexts -- the "medicine bottle" context is a good example, where probably because of the formality/writing style, the gerundive is a more usual choice, and the sentence I've just written would actually be a bit unusual in this context (whereas e.g. if it was the mother telling their child when to take the tablet, it would be completely normal).

I don't know if the author gives an example pair of sentences to illustrate the difference they see?

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Permalink Reply by nonick on September 28, 2010 at 5:29pm

I think you are right, the note probably means the gerundive would be used in that text if the author didn't mention the bottle of wine which is the "specific instance"

Here is the embrouillamini :

Before he drank n'est pas équivalent de before drinking. Il existe des différences sémantiques entre le verbe à l'infinitif ou aux formes personnelles et le verbe au gérondif. Cf. Remember to post the letter ; do you remember posting the letter, (postériorité v. antériorité). La forme personnelle est particularisée par la situation. Paraphrase : avant de se mettre à boire (n'importe quoi). Le gérondif a une valeur générale. Cela renvoie aux interdictions dans les lieux publics : no smoking, no waiting (général), it is forbidden to smoke in a hospital (plus personnalisé), you are not allowed to (individualisé).

Thanks again for your help :)

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on September 28, 2010 at 8:37pm

To be honest, I think the author is mixing several points that aren't really related in quite the way they suggest.

So, it seems reasonable that in general (and you will find studies looking into this in more detail), the gerundive appears to have an effect of "focussing on the middle of the action"-- in those cases where there is genuinely a choice. For example:

(a) He tried setting two alarms to make sure he woke up
(b) He tried to set two alarms to make sure he woke up

In (a), we focus more on the "action" of him setting the alarms; in (b), we focus more on the result, and in fact the implication is that he didn't succeed for some reason.

However, in other cases, you could argue simply that e.g. remember has two distinct senses, and each sense takes a different construction-- i.e. it's a piece of syntax, not a piece of semantics/pragmatics.

The "no smoking" example is problematic, because "smoking" isn't such a good candidate for a gerundive here (I don't think people would say *No often smoking, *No smoking slyly, whereas with a "true" gerundive you can say Him often smoking is bad for his health, Him smoking slyly meant his wife didn't find out -- they seem to be different grammatical constructions, and the gerundive/infinitive distinction is irrelevant here).

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Permalink Reply by nonick on September 29, 2010 at 3:11pm

Thank you, it's far clearer than my note :)

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Permalink Reply by Pete Laubscher on September 29, 2010 at 5:42pm

What about this further explication?

A gerundive is used adjectivally or whether the action ought or must occur. To establish whether the word is being used as a gerundive, ask those sorts of questions about the proposed action.

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