Към темпоралното отношение на подчинените обстоятелствени изречения за време със съюзите ehe, bevor и преди да в немския и българския език

It is established both in German and Bulgarian grammar that subordinate adverbial clauses of time introduced with the conjunctions ehe and bevor in German and преди да in Bulgarian indicate that the action in the subordinate clause is posterior to that in the main clause. With the help of the transformational method this rule is proved to be valid for positive sentences. If, however, the main clause contains a negation which can be optionally introduced into the subordinate clause, the temporal relationship between the main and subordinate clauses are just the reverse, the action in the subordinate clause being anterior to that in the main clause. These sentences are the result of the stylistic transformation of positive into negative sentences with a view to achieving greater expressiveness. They contain a certain element of conditionality.