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14 He won't be satisfied until he gets an apology. In adverbial clauses of time referring to future, we use one of the present tenses. We do not use shall or will in a predictive sense in such clauses. The conjunctions commonly used to introduce time clauses are : when, as soon as, before, after, until, once, by the time (that), the moment (that). To this list we can also add the condutional conjunction if. There are two points to note, however. (a) When may introduce a noun clause, in which case the restriction does not apply. We can compare two sentences: 15a He will tell you (c.g. what you want to know) when he has the necessary information. The last clauses says when he will tell you, and is an adverbial clause of time. We therefore use the paresent simple tense. 15b He will tell you when he will have the necessary information. Here, the clause after when says what he will tell you (i.e. it is a noun clause), and is the grammatical equivalent of 'what you want to know' in 15a. In 15b, moreover, we could add an adverb of time: Tomorrow he will tell you when he will have the necessary information. (b) Will is often used in a modal sense, expressing willingness or agreement on the part of the subject. Uses in this sense, it may appear in a time clause or a conditional clause: You'll have to pay him before he will do anything. Everything will be all right if you will all do as you're told. |