<p>Before I am a good athlete, I am a good teammate. </p>
<p>Yes or no? If no, why?</p>
<p>I believe it’s grammatically correct; however, I think since the subjects of both clauses are the same, it would sound better as “Before being a good athlete, I am a good teammate.”</p>
<p>“before” has many meanings, some of which vary by which form of the word one is using: adverb, adjective, preposition, or conjunction.</p>
<p>Because you have two clauses that are not linked with a coordinating conjunction, “Before I am a good athlete” must be a dependent clause; this means that you’re using “Before” adverbially. </p>
<p>Of the adverbial use of “Before,” Merriam-Webster says:</p>
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</knew></the></marching></p>
<p>The closest thing to your intended meaning is “ahead.” Of the adverbial use of “ahead,” Merriam-Webster says:</p>
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</make></helped></plan></p>
<p>None of these seem to support your intended meaning, and so I have to conclude that your use of “Before” in this context is colloquial and thus ungrammatical.</p>
<p>Only the prepositional use of “Before” is consistent with your intended meaning; of the prepositional use of “Before,” Random House Dictionary says, most relevantly:</p>
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<p>Thus, reworking the sentence syntactically while preserving diction could theoretically render the sentence grammatical; I, however, cannot think of a fluid way to accomplish this. </p>
<p>The sentence would be irrefutably grammatical and much simpler (and semantically the same) if it were like this: “Although I am a good althete, I am foremost a good teammate.”</p>
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<p>“before” IS the conjunction that links the two clauses.</p>
<p>“I am a good teammate after I am a good athlete.”</p>
<p>Crazybandit, thanks for pointing that out. Silverturtle’s comment made me feel stupid ): haha.</p>
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<p>That’s part of my point. “before,” though, is not a coordinating conjunction, which means that it’s being used adverbially. The adverb does not have the same definition as the prepositional use of “before” does.</p>
<p>Why does it have to be a coordinating conjunction? </p>
<p>“I floss before I brush”
“I will die before I give in”</p>
<p>Are these sentences incorrect then?</p>
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<p>This has the same problem as the original sentence.</p>
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<p>Those sentences are fine. “before” doesn’t have to be a coordinating conjunction; in fact, it can never be. The fact that there is no coordinating conjunction in the sentence indicates that “before” is a subordinating conjunction.</p>
<p>All subordinating conjunction are adverbial. The adverbial form of “before” doesn’t mean what the author of the original sentence was trying to convey (only the prepositional form means that).</p>
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<p>Why did you go from “subordinating conjunction” to “adverbial”? Conjunctions are separate from adverbs in terms of definition. The definition of the conjunction “before” matches the meaning of the sentence</p>
<p>Expanding on what crazybandit said, one definition of “before” as a conjunction is “rather or sooner than” which fits the context of the sentence.</p>
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<p>Subordinating conjunctions are adverbs ([Linda</a> Bryson’s List of English Conjunctions](<a href=“http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwesl/egw/bryson.htm]Linda”>http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwesl/egw/bryson.htm)). </p>
<p>Even if we just look at the conjunction definition of “before,” the entries don’t fit the intended meaning:</p>
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</get></must></miles></get></i’ll></call></p>
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</get></must></miles></get></i’ll></call></p>
<p>"Before I am a good athlete, I am a good teammate. "</p>
<p>The sentence is trying to say that the subject is x before (sooner than) he is y.</p>
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<p>That’s not how I interpreted it. I think the OP means this definition:</p>
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<p>And so I suggested: “Although I am a good athlete, I am foremost a good teammate.” </p>
<p>If your interpretation was the intended meaning, I thought it would be written: “Before I can become a good teammate, I must be a good athlete.” It wouldn’t make sense if both verbs were in the present tense.</p>
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<p>It makes sense because it is a saying, so it has figurative meaning. Literally, the sentence does not make sense because the clauses are supposed to be connected through differences in rank (as the conjunction “before” permits) and not time, but reasonably we can infer the same idea because we usually do things of greater importance earlier. This structure is probably something like a proverb or idiomatic phrase, but it’s very commonly said:</p>
<p>“I will die before I give in”
I will die sooner than I will give in
I value death more than I value giving in</p>
<p>“I floss before I brush”
I floss sooner than I brush
I value flossing more than I value brushing</p>
<p>Both verbs can be in present tense because they describe not what you are doing right now but what you normally do – what your routines are. As before, indicating differences in time isn’t the main purpose of “before” (as a conjunction), although the sentence still makes sense in that context because it indicates routines: “I floss at 8:00 and brush at 9:00.”</p>
<p>The Merrian-Webster online dictionary has an example of the usage of the definition of “before” as a conjunction: “would starve before he’d steal.” The verbs have the same tense, and the clauses are of different importance. Only reason it isn’t “he starves before he steals” is that it is a hypothetical situation, what he would do, and not a routine.</p>
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<p>These sentences indicate importance only implicitly; that is, one can only infer relative importance because nothing is done after death. The definition being used is still that related to sequence.</p>
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<p>Same situation here. The importance is only implicitly conveyed because nothing can be done after one starves. </p>
<p>Only the prepositional use of “before” has the appropriate definition. Given the way the sentence is structured, “before” is not being used prepositionally.</p>
<p>so yes? lol. I think the phrase is a saying but i’m not too sure.</p>
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<p>crazybandit thinks it’s correct; I don’t.</p>
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<p>For the most part this isn’t really correct. We don’t infer that “dying” is more important than “giving in” simply because nothing comes after death. When we hear “I will die before I…” we know the person is emphasizing how much he or she does not want to do something, not the fact that he or she isn’t able to do it. A remark about the latter is too obvious and literal.</p>
<p>Notice that the definition of “before” as a conjunction includes “rather than” with “sooner than.” It is placed first (“Rather than; sooner than”) because it is essential to the word’s usage. Both phrases are put in the same entry because both are relevant to the one particular usage of the word. Neither can stand alone; we do not strictly mean “rather than” nor do we strictly mean “sooner than” when we use it in that sense. We mean both, one literally and one figuratively</p>