“After that”-clauses with subjunctive, modal shall
A syntactic combination of the second half of the sixteenth century.
| 1n1107 | after that ye shall have witnessed him | |
| 1n1335 | after that thy seed shall be destroyed and dwindle in unbelief | |
| 2n2601 | after that Christ shall have risen from the dead | |
| 2n2603 | after that the Messiah shall come | |
| 2n2615 | after that the Lord God shall have camped against them round about and shall have laid siege against them with a mount |
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| 2n2615 | after that they shall have been brought down low in the dust | |
| 2n3206 | after that he shall manifest himself unto you in the flesh |
There are no late modern texts with similar usage levels, and no examples in pseudo-archaic texts. The King James Bible has only one example with shalt, and the main verb know has an archaic meaning of ‘come to know’:
Daniel 4:26
thy kingdome shall be sure vnto thee,
after that thou shalt haue knowen that the heauens doe rule.
Four texts were found to have more than seven, two with nine (1550, A13758; 1594, A19799) and two with eight (1548, A16036; 1579, A14461). So this Book of Mormon language is most characteristic of English from the 1540s to the 1590s. (It is possible that one or two examples in three of these texts have an indicative shall; later texts, including the King James Bible, tend to have examples with indicative shall.)
Here are the nine verified examples of “after that . . shall[subjunctive]” from the 1550 translation of Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War (spelling modified for general readability):
| 1550, A13758, [11] | after that we shall have recited them both, you shall judge which of them is more worthy of praise. |
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| [xxxix] | to the intent to live always in peace and rest, after that we shall have been revenged of them. |
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| [liiii] | after that I shall have declared [how] our empire hath been established, I will come to the praise of them here, of whom we have to speak. |
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| [237] | after that they shall be entered thereinto by force, we shall be in danger |
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| [cxlv] | after that declaration shall have been made of the present articles, it shall be in their liberty, |
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| [387] | after that you shall have accroached any ship, determine not to suffer it to escape until you have destroyed all the warriors within it. |
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| [395] | ye shall not easily be driven away after that you shall have been thereunto once retired, |
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| [395] | after that we shall have arrived in whatsoever town of this country, we shall be in surety, |
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| [421] | after that the Athenians shall have lost the greatest part of their force, the Peloponnesians should be so weakened, |
Book of Mormon (1829): 7; Peloponnesian War (1550): 9.
There are two instances of subjunctive, modal shall in 2n2615 governed by a single “after that” subordinator. Here are three similar examples (spelling modified for general readability):
1548,
after that they shall have scourged him, and shall have ministered unto him all kinds of reproach and villainy in word, they shall in fine put him to death:
1594,
indeed after that the Lord God shall have taken away from his church both the aids of men, and also shall have rooted out of her false doctrine and ungodliness,
1616,
(which knowledge you may come by, in tasting it after that the wine shall be put up in vessels, and shall first begin to boil and work in them)
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