“After that” subordinate clauses
+ main clauses with periphrastic did

The following combination of archaic Book of Mormon language isn’t found in the King James Bible or pseudo-archaic writings.^[1 , 2] In the 12 excerpts shown below, there is a subordinate clause followed by a main clause. The subordinate clause is in the past perfect tense and it begins with an archaic “after that”; the main clause is in the past tense and it has an archaic periphrastic did:

1 Nephi 8:25
And after that they had partook of the fruit of the tree,
they did cast their eyes about as if they were ashamed.

1 Nephi 17:11
And after that I had made bellowses that I might have wherewith
to blow the fire, I did smite two stones together that I might make fire.

[1 Nephi 7:21] And after that they had done praying unto the Lord, we did again travel on our journey toward the tent of our father. [1 Nephi 16:14] And after that we had slain food for our families, we did return again to our families in the wilderness to the place of Shazer. [1 Nephi 16:17] And after that we had traveled for the space of many days, we did pitch our tents for the space of a time, [1 Nephi 16:33] And after that we had traveled for the space of many days, we did pitch our tents again, [1 Nephi 18:21] and after that I had prayed, the winds did cease and the storm did cease and there was a great calm. [2 Nephi 5:7] And after that we had journeyed for the space of many days, we did pitch our tents. [Ether 6:21] And after that they had numbered them, they did desire of them the things which they would that they should do before they went down to their graves. [Ether 10:10] And after that he had established himself king, he did ease the burden of the people, [Ether 10:17] And after that he had seen many days, he did pass away, even like unto the rest of the earth, [Moroni 9:10] and after that they had done this thing, they did murder them in a most cruel manner,

Archaic “after that” usage was primarily usage of the 16th century and earlier.^[3] It was used in the 16th century at five times the rate of the 17th century; and it was used at an even higher rate in the 15th century. Affirmative periphrastic did usage strengthened after 1530 but faded during the 17th century.^[4] Thus the strongest intersection of these time periods was during the second half of the 1500s.

1 Nephi 8:25 and 1 Nephi 17:11 have bellowses and partook, word forms commonly thought to qualify as bad grammar that Joseph Smith was responsible for. However, like the surrounding usage, both the double plural bellowses and the leveled past participle partook occurred in the early modern period.^[5]

This late 16th-century syntax is like other aspects of the text, such as its personal relative pronoun usage, which reflects a similar time depth.^[6] Outside of the Book of Mormon, the highest rate of textual usage occurred between the years 1550 and 1625.^[7] This combined usage was obsolete before Joseph Smith was born.^[8]

The first early modern example that came up in a recent search was dated 1531. The first author to employ multiple instances of the syntax might have been Thomas Nicolls, whose translation of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War was published in 1550. It turned out that Nicolls’s eight instances were the most found in a single text (besides the Book of Mormon):^[9]

1550, EEBO A13758, [49]
After that the Athenyans had harde bothe parties,
they dyd put the matter into deliberatyon two tymes.

[51] After that the Corinthians had chased the Corcyriens to the entrye of the sea, they dyd retourne to receyue their shippwrackes and shyppes skatered abroade and brused, [339] After that Hermocrates had ended hys aduertysements, all the people founde them good, and dyd chose hymself for one of the Capytayns [343] After that Hermocrates had thus spokene, Euphemus the Athenyan arose vp and dydde speake in thys manner. [391] Fynally after that the storme had longe endured, the Syracusains and theire allyes did put the Athenyans to flyght, [413] But being there arryued, and vnderstanding the departure of the ennemys, after that they had soiourned there one daye, they dyd take the ships of the Chians, [413] In the begynning of winter, Tissaphernes, after y ^t he had wel furnished [I]asus, did come to Milet, & there made payment to y^e souldiars, which were in the ships, [cciiii] And after that he had sailled a lytle way, there soubdainly did come a great wynde, whiche parted & skatered abroade his ships,

Other syntactic similarities between the Book of Mormon and Nicolls’s translation include relatively frequent “more part” usage and the archaic referential phraseology “of whom hath been spoken”.

In the 1690s (~175 million words), only three original instances were found:^[10]

1692, EEBO A61358, 12
After that he had spoken thus, I did observe by the Countenance of the other two persons that had not yet spoken, that this Discourse did not displease them;

1693, EEBO A69887, 80
For after that Eustathius had been forc’d to leave it, many Catholicks did always separate from those Bishops, that some would have set over them.

1700, EEBO A93732, 9
After that they had crucified the Lord Jesus,
then they did know, and own him to have been a Prophet;

After this decade, original examples of this combined syntax all but vanished from the textual record. Thus this specific Book of Mormon language is most like usage of the second half of the 16th-century.

In the ECCO database, there are some reprinted early modern examples from (1) a translation of a Spanish novel, (2) a text by the eventual author of The Pilgrim’s Progress, and (3) a short history of King Lear (date unknown; spelling typical of the 16th century):

1654, EEBO A31530, 75 ^[11]
Howbeit, after that shee had acquainted him with her delivery,
he did certainly assure himselfe that it was her sonne,

1656, EEBO A30208, 97 ^[12]
That is, Christ, who is the true God, after that he had finished all actual obedience on earth, did in the power and strength of his Godhead yield up himselfe to the wrath of his Father,

1775, ECCO CB0129115242, 158
and after that Lyr had been a certen tyme with Maglawn, his daughter Goronilla did grudge that her father had such great attendance on him,

Only one original example was found in ECCO—a deliberate archaism by a Scottish English poet:

1790, ECCO CW0113123187, 43
After that Boswel thus had said, / Our pastor did proceed / To pray’r,

I might have missed some 18th-century instances, and an improved ECCO database would help, nevertheless, the usage was in obsolescence by then. In any event, it is possible that the Book of Mormon has more examples of this early modern syntax than any other text.

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[1] The closest biblical passage is Jeremiah 31:19, in which periphrastic “did bear” occurs in a following sentence. See also John 6:23, which has a preceding “did eat” in an adverbial clause.

[2] This conclusion is based on a search of the WordCruncher ebook Pseudo-archaic texts (currently with 25 texts and about 582,500 words). “After that” usage turned out to be much less common than periphrastic did usage in pseudo-archaic texts, reflecting the prevalence in the 1611 King James Bible.

[3] Javier Calle Martín, “ ‘When That Wounds Are Evil Healed’: Revisiting Pleonastic That in Early English Medical Writing”, Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 52.1 (2017): 5.

[4] Nonemphatic, noncontrastive, affirmative usage. See Alvar Ellegård, The Auxiliary Do: The Establishment and Regulation of Its Use in English (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1953).

[5] See, for example, 1591, EEBO A10250, 158, for bellowses; 1660, EEBO A67475, 262, for “had partook”; and 1493, EEBO A23590, [139], for “had took”.

[6] Stanford Carmack, “Personal Relative Pronoun Usage in the Book of Mormon: An Important Authorship Diagnostic,” Interpreter 49 (2021): 5–36.

[7] The largest early modern database, EEBO, suggests that the 16th-century usage rate of this syntax was roughly five times the 17th-century rate (based on 220 instances, some false positives).

[8] This observation is based chiefly on searches of ECCO (see primary sources above). ECCO and EEBO are more than twice as large as Google Books for the 18th century and earlier; this is derivable from the ngram file totalcounts-0. The following observation occurs in the Ngram Viewer Release Notes: “There [were] only about 500,000 books published in English before the 19th century.”

[9] The book found to have the second most instances of the combined syntax (five of them) is a 1612 translation of a history of Venice. The translator’s usage was often part of a relative clause or an adverbial clause, as in this example: “who after that he had transported the Ducall state to Rialto, did there beginne his gouernment with better augurie,” (1612, EEBO A01095, 28).

[10] In two cases, the archaic periphrastic did was not in the main clause: 1691, EEBO B04974, [1–2]; 1696, EEBO A35020, 169. In another potential example, the author died in 1660: 1693, EEBO A57041, 175.

[11] This 17th-century translation of Cervantes’s The Lady Cornelia (the second book in a collection of six novels) doesn’t mention a translator by name. The translation is attributed to Thomas Shelton in an 18th-century revision: 1742, ECCO CW0109653948, 95.

[12] This 1656 text was reprinted in several 18th-century collections, such as The works of [. . .] John Bunyan 2, 3rd edition (1767) (the combined syntax is found on page 441). It is also found in: 1771, ECCO CW0119288740, 64; 1771, ECCO CW0120462035, 894; and 1784, ECCO CW0119299394, 370.