Dans trois verres je danse nue : un dans temporel pas comme les autres

This paper deals with a temporal use of French preposition "dans" (‘in’) in sequences such as "dans" + Num. + N (e.g. "dans trois jours" ‘in three days’), where the temporal PP indicates a temporal distance from a reference point to a posterior event. We call this use of dans ‘prospective use’. We focus more particularly on cases where the noun (N) is not a temporal noun but a noun denoting an event (e.g. "dans trois élections" ‘in three elections’) or an object (e.g. "dans trois bières" ‘in three beers’). We explore the conditions in which these types of entities allow the measuring of the temporal distance.