Apprehensive and frustrative uses of before

In this paper, I look at how context-dependent inferences can enrich the meaning of non-factual before (‘avant que’) clauses in French. My proposal is that, a sentence like ‘before p, q’, connective may receive two pragmatically enriched readings: (i) an apprehensive reading, when agent responsible for q has goal avoiding p (after Anderbois & Dabkowski (2020)); (ii) frustrative it contrary to expectations that p. Going further, address question expletive negation avant que clauses, arguing puts emphasis on connective’s invited negative (teleological or doxastic) preference. Finally, generalize account other contexts where occurs