Talk:Future tense

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[edit] Periphrasis

Could you explain why, as languages evolve, future tenses are usually substituted by periphrasis? Fear of the irrealis?

I'm not at all certain that there is a general rule that governs the replacement of future tenses. In western Romance, they seem to have been paraphrases at one time, but now are fully re-integrated, though their relationship to the infinitive and the verbs derived from habere are usually relatively transparent. The replacement of the Latin future with a paraphrase is likely to have been made necessary by phonetic changes in vulgar Latin, which made futures like amabit ambiguous to perfects like amavit. In Germanic, there isn't even a future tense per se in the Gothic language, so periphrasis is all we get.
But they are not that stable. You have forms like "voy a {verb}" in Spanish or gonna in English.
Elsewhere, there doesn't seem to be a trend to replacing them wholesale. In demotic Greek, the inherited future lives on. Don't know enough about Slavic to say, nor about non-Indo-European languages. -- Smerdis of Tlön 15:54, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
This is not true. It is a common tendency in all languages to replace synthetic forms with new periphrastic constructions, although it may take less time in some languages than in others. This is called "renewal". Romance languages are a good example: the Latin future morphemes are derived from an Indo-European lexical verb (I'm not sure which one though, possibly something with the meaning "have"), a process called grammaticalization. Later, the future construction is replaced by the construction verb + "habere" (renewal) - this construction is again grammaticalized as, for example, "chanterai" in French. However, there is a new tendency of renewal, namely the "aller" ("go") + verb construction.
The reason for such phenomena is that speakers have a tendency to use new expressive means in their sentences. Longer and periphrastic constructions have the effect of putting more emphasis on the grammatical function they express, so in "cantare habeo" more emphasis can be put on the fact that the action happens in the future than in "cantabim". Of course, this once unusual and pragmatically marked construction will at some point lose its characterics and become an ordinary constructions which replaces the old one. In this situation it is likely, although not necessary, that it is grammaticalized into an synthetic construction. Then, later, the same thing will happen again.83.76.80.235 (talk) 01:15, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Is there a specific exact need to use the term periphrasis when most users will have little enough Greek? Could we not use a term like circumlocution ? Latin, I know, but surely with far greater currency amongst users --Jatrius 23:06, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

It's not really clear that there is a lack of stability in future forms for either Spanish or English. be going to has been around since the 1400s as far as I know. It certainly isn't recent, and it isn't clear at all that it's toppling will. Although it is an open question as to what exactly the difference is between will and gonna, it is clear that they have differing distributions, i.e., they have different purposes in the language and therefore neither is necessarily edging the other out. Both are perfectly stable where they are. I suspect the situation is similar in Spanish. -- Anaphor 02:30, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Simple Future

Pardon me if i'm wrong, but as the will + verb construction requires the "will" auxillary, it is not a "simple" tense. Simple refers to tenses indicated without auxillies. is that not right?

What bothers me as that IT ISN'T EVEN A BLOODY TENSE! It is an 'aspect'. How can we get this changed? --JohnO 18:28, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
While I think that you're right in the sense that will and other modals aren't tense in the way that past/present are tenses, I don't think it's an egregious error to call it tense. And it certainly isn't aspect; aspect can either refer to progressive aspect or perfect aspect, or it can refer to aktionsart. -- Anaphor 02:30, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

In languages other than English, such as Italian, the simple future is simple because only one word stands for "I will have gone" which is andro (the o is accented). In the infinitive "to go" it is andare. It is possible, therefore, that the reason English grammar books call this a simple tense is because of its derivation from other languages.

Combining the section on future perfect would not be the best option. As it is if someone is looking for future perfect he/she can find it easily. If it is combined, then the search engine must reflect the "future" tense when someone has searched for "future perfect." Or a disambiguation page would be necessary.


[edit] "shall" obsolete?

This seems a premature assertion to me - I still use "shall" for the first person - and few people will ask the question "Will we dance?" 139.163.138.14 06:11, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree, I have changed the paragraph. Daniel (☎) 19:37, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


User:Jatrius added "(Pejorative footnote alert) Note that some commentators, especially in England and following Chambers's 17th century grammar as well as the more authoritative but now, perhaps, stilted English authorities of style up to the early twentieth century prefer that the first person, whether 'I' or 'we' decline with 'shall'."
I see nothing perjorative about the reference to Chambers, nor is the claim about other authorities relevant. The point is that this was Chambers's idea about what he thought the language ought to be like rather than how it was; any subsequent grammar books with similar claims simply cribbed them from him. --BrettR 15:53, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merger from future

I think it's pretty obvious the future tense section from future needs merging into here. Comments? Objections? Grandmasterka 02:53, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Merge supported.--Boson 18:33, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
I, too, agree. It talks about grammar and not future as a concept in itself, therefore I support it. 2.7182V 04:45, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Object: The two are different tenses. Merging for merge's sake is stupid. Since both are different grammatical tenses, it makes sense to have two seperate articles. Why, for instance, merge pluperfect and perfect tenses? Which are, after all, as similar as the future is to the future perfect. Lofty 11:40, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Shall and should

IMO it's incorrect to list should as one of the auxiliary verbs used to form the future tense in English. Should is just a past of shall, though in the modern language it's not usually perceived as such, but rather as an auxiliary verb on its own. --195.1.232.18 00:39, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Oops, that was actually me, forgot to log in. --X-Man 00:40, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Some missing futures

Some missing future tense in English:

Be going to (or be gonna, used in almost every English dialect) for near future - This is borrowed from French, where it is recognized as a tense

I agree gonna should be added, although I'm fairly sure it wasn't borrowed from French. -- Anaphor 02:30, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Might (used for uncertain future events - I challenge anyone to create a sentence where might does not indicate a future event or strength)

        -um... okay. He might have gone.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.131.49.199 (talk) 22:33, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

May is vague in many dialects, while shall is rarely used in many dialects, and is probably on its way out of the language (soon to go the way of "Whom)

Italic text== Shall vs. Will ==

Shortly after explaining that the will/shall distinction has never described common usage anywhere in the world, the article goes into a length discussion that makes this distinction at excruciating length (although at least it leaves out the joke about the Scotsman/Irishman/Northerner/American who drowns in the Thames because he confuses the two). Surely this is unnecessary. --75.36.142.90 12:16, 1 September 2007 (UTC)