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Consider:

  1. Mary's not here. She'll be at a meeting downtown all afternoon. I guess I'll just have to wait until tomorrow and have her help me then.

  2. A: Ms.Jones left right around 3.00. B: I'll have to call her home, then. This report can't wait. We have to talk about it before tomorrow.

  3. A: We're playing tennis this afternoon. Would you like to join us?
    B: Thanks, but I'm really wiped out.
    A: Then you'd better rest.

Does then in topic 1 and topic 2 have the same meaning?

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2 Answers 2

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No, they're two different meanings.

  1. Mary's not here. She'll be at a meeting downtown all afternoon. I guess I'll just have to wait until tomorrow and have her help me at that time.
  2. A: Ms.Jones left right around 3.00. B: I'll have to call her home, as a consequence. This report can't wait. We have to talk about it before tomorrow.
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1
  • Thank you. In the topic 3, I think "then" means "as a consequence". Am I right?
    – Sit
    Commented Aug 4, 2014 at 3:24
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You could interpret topic 1 in a way such that they have the same meaning, but this is not the most likely meaning. Adding a comma before "then" could help support this alternate interpretation:

I guess I'll just have to wait until tomorrow and have her help me, then.

This could make sense because the sentence discusses both a consequence and a time.

The most likely understanding of those sentences, and the two forms of "then", is given by @dan04's answer.

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