The Puzzle of quasi prima ‘almost before’ and quasi dopo ‘almost after’

This paper focuses on a puzzling asymmetry which arises when the Italian approximative adverb quasi ‘almost’ modifies the temporal connectives prima ‘before’ and dopo ‘after’. By looking at naturally occurring data, we observe that A quasi prima che B ‘A almost before B’ can be used to convey that an Aeventuality occurs early, only a little bit after a B-eventuality occurs. Consider the sentences (1a, b), both adapted from examples taken from the web: