I will simply repeat what I said on the previous page: The words _door, na, alvorens, om, in plaats van_ and _zonder_ can mark the beginning of a short subclause. If they do, the subclause always contains a "te + infinitive" construction. You can read more about this under [short subclauses](#/lesson/WordOrder.62).
The word 'om' is a special case and was discussed on the previous page. We will now look at alvorens, door, in plaats van, na and zonder.
alvorens
_prior to_ | door
_by_ | in plaats van
_instead of_ | na
_after_ | zonder
Alvorens, door, in plaats van, and zonder
The construction is very simple: After the prepositions mentioned above follows 'te' + infinitive.
Alvorens te beginnen, moet men de stekker in het stopcontact steken. | Prior to starting (on it), one has to put the plug in the socket.
Door elke ochtend een half uurtje te lopen, zag hij er tien jaar jonger uit. | By walking ten minutes every morning, he looked ten years younger.
In plaats van te helpen, maakten ze het hem juist moeilijker. | Instead of helping (out), they just made it more difficult for him.
Ze staken de straat over zonder uit te kijken. | They crossed the street without looking out.
Na
A short subclause that begins with _na_ always has a [perfect tense](#/lesson/Verbs.Re13). This means that we are dealing with a 'te + infinitive + past participle' construction. See also [past participle](#/lesson/Verbs.Re12).
In other words, we do not use the construction 'after dining with our neighbours', but only 'after having dined with our neighbours'.
De timmerman kwam thuis na daar te hebben gewerkt. | The carpenter came home after having worked there.
Na een uur te hebben rondgelopen, gingen we. | After having walked around for an hour, we went... (lit)