Just as the hunter left his stand.”—Scott.
9. If we wish to state exactly when something ends, we introduce the temporal clause by as long as, or so long as,—“So long as men had slender means, whether of keeping out cold or checkmating it with artificial heat, Winter was an unwelcome guest, especially in the country.”—Lowell.
10. Whenever means at any time that,—
“Yet whenever I cross the river,
On its bridge with wooden piers,
Like the odor of brine from the ocean
Comes the thought of other years.”
—Longfellow.
11. Clauses introduced by now that denote both time and cause, and it is often difficult to determine which of the two ideas is more prominent. In the sentence,—“What do you think of your home now that you see it?”—Black, there is certainly more of time than of cause, for if the verb in the principal proposition were changed from the present tense to either past or future, when would be substituted for now that.
What the Time Clause modifies.—Since we use a time clause to tell (1) when a state exists or when an activity is performed, (2) the duration of an activity or a state, it is clear that the clause modifies a word denoting state or action, namely, a verb. Usually it modifies a predicate verb, but it may modify the verbals, either infinitives or participles.