Future tense

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In grammar, the future tense is a verb form that marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future.

Expressions of future tense

Languages can employ various strategies to convey future tense meaning. The future can be a simple tense, meaning that verbs can be inflected, or conjugated, to indicate future tense. For instance, Italian has a simple future tense:

present parlo "I talk, I am talking" vs. future parlerò "I will talk"

The future can also be a compound tense, or an analytical structure involving the main verb and an auxiliary verb. The English future tense using the tense auxiliary will is an example of a compound future tense. Across languages, the auxiliary verbs used to mark future tense often include verbs originally meaning "come", "go", "have", "take" "love", or "want" (the origin of English will). The auxiliary+verb sequence can eventually become grammaticalized into a single word form, leading to reanalysis as a simple future tense. This is in fact the origin of the future tense in Western Romance languages like Italian (see below).

In some languages, there is no special morphological or syntactic indication of future tense, and future meaning is supplied by the context, for example by the use of temporal adverbs like "later", "next year", etc. Such adverbs (in particular words meaning "tomorrow" and "then") can also develop into grammaticalized future tense markers.

A given language can exhibit more than one strategy for expressing future tense. Also, the verb forms used for the future tense can also be used to express other types of meaning. For example, the auxiliary werden "become" is used for both the future tense and the passive voice in German.

Future tense in English

In English, as in most Germanic languages, there is no simple future tense. Futurity is expressed either by using words that imply future action ("I go to Berlin tomorrow.") or by employing an auxiliary construction that combines certain present tense verbs with the stem of the verb which represents the true action of the sentence.

The tradition that English has a future tense traces to the period of 300 years, from 1066 to about 1350, when Anglo-Norman was the official language of England. Norman, unlike English, is a Romance language; and the Romance languages, unlike Germanic languages, do have a simple future tense.

The most common auxiliary verbs used to express futurity are will, should, can, may, and must. Of these, "will" is the most neutral and it is the most commonly used. "Should" implies obligation or commitment to the action contemplated. "Can" implies the ability to commit the action but does not presuppose obligation or firm commitment to the action. "May" expresses the least sense of commitment and is the most permissive; it is also a verb used in the auxiliary construction that suggests conditionality. "Must," by contrast, expresses the highest degree of obligation and commitment ("I must go") and is temporally nearest to present time in its expression of futurity ("I must go now.")

To wit:

I shall/will go
I should go
I can go
I may go
I must go

To express futurity in the negative, a negative adverb - such as "not" or "never" is inserted after the auxiliary verb, as in all other auxiliary constructions.

I shall/will not go
I should never go
I cannot go
I may never go
I must not go

In all of these, action within a future range of time is contemplated. But in all cases, the sentences are actually voiced in the present tense, since there is no proper future tense in English. It is the implication of futurity that makes these present tense auxiliary constructions amount to a compound future quasi-tense.

Note that some commentators, especially in England, prefer that the first person, whether 'I' or 'we' decline with 'shall' as the auxiliary and that the other two persons decline with 'will'. This does not describe, nor has it ever described, common usage anywhere in the world, although there are people who follow it. It was originally suggested in Chambers's 17th century grammar.

This reality, that expression of futurity in English is a function of the present tense, is born out by the ability to negate the implication of futurity without making any change to the auxiliary construction. When a verbal construction that suggests futurity (such as "I shall go") is subsequently followed by information that establishes a condition or presupposition, or the active verb stem itself contradicts a future indicative application of the construction, then any sense of future tense is negated - especially when the auxiliary will is used within its literal meaning, which is to voluntarily 'will' an action. For example:

Person A says: "You will go now. You will not stay."
Person B answers: "I shall go nowhere. I will stay."

The second 'will', in B's response, is not only expressing volition here but is being used in contradistinction to the usual first person 'shall' in order to achieve emphasis. Similarly, in the case of the second and third persons, 'will' operates with 'shall' in reverse.

For example:

            A: Will he be at the café at six o'clock?

            B: He will be there.  [Normal affirmation]

      BUT   B: He shall be there.

[Stresses that this is not the usual pattern that was previously established or to be expected (Last time he was late or did not show up)]

Additional auxiliary constructions used to express futurity are labelled as follows:

Future Continuous: Auxiliary + Verb Stem + Present Participle

I shall/will be going
You will be singing
He will be sleeping
We may be coming
They may be travelling
It will be snowing when Nancy arrives
It will not be raining when Josie leaves

Future Perfect: Auxiliary + Verb Stem + Past Participle

I shall/will be gone
You will have sung
He will have slept
We may have come ("We may be come" can still be used poetically, but it is obsolete in speech)
They may have travelled
It will have snowed
It will not have rained

Future Perfect Habitual (or Future Perfect Continuous): Auxiliary + Verb Stem + Past Participle + Present Participle

I shall/will have been going
You will have been singing
He will have been sleeping
We may have been coming
They may have been travelling
It will have been snowing
It will not have been raining

Latin and Romance

The future tense forms in Latin varied by conjugation. Here is a sample of the future tense for the first conjugation verb 'amare', 'to love'.

amabo	I will (shall) love
amabis	you (singular) will love
amabit	he, she, it will love
amabimus	we will (shall) love
amabitis	you (plural) will love
amabunt	they will love

See Latin conjugation for further details. Sound changes in Vulgar Latin made future forms difficult to distinguish from other verb forms (e.g. amabit "he will love" vs. amavit "he loved"), and the Latin simple future forms were gradually replaced by periphrastic structures involving the infinitive and an auxiliary verb, such as debere, venire, velle, and especially habere. All of the modern Romance languages have grammaticalized one of these periphrastic constructions for expressing the future tense; none of them has preserved the original Latin future.

Future tense with habere

The major Western Romance languages have simple future tense forms that derive from the infinitive followed by a conjugated form of the verb "to have" (Latin habere). As the auxiliary verb lost its modal force (from a verb expressing obligation, desire, or intention, to a simple marker of tense), it also lost syntactic autonomy (becoming an enclitic) and phonological substance (e.g. Latin 1st sing. habeo > ayyo > Old French ai, Modern French [e]). Thus the sequence of Latin verbs amare habeo ("I have to love") gave rise to French aimerai, Spanish amaré, etc. "I will love".

Phonetic changes also affected the infinitive in the evolution of this form, so that in the modern languages the future stem is not always identical to the infinitive. Consider the following Spanish examples:

"go out": infinitive salir → 3rd sing. future saldrá (not *salirá)
"do": infinitive hacer → 3rd sing. future hará (not *hacerá)

See the grammar articles for the individual languages for more details about verb conjugation.

Celtic languages

Scottish Gaelic

In Gaelic, the future tense is formed in regular verbs by adding aidh or idh to the end of the root form of the verb (idh is used if the final vowel in the root is i).

Danns. (dance.) -> Dannsaidh mi. (I will dance.)
Cuir. (put.) -> Cuiridh i. (She will put.)

The negative is formed by inserting cha before the root. The initial consonant of the root is lenited where possible, except for d, t or s which in certain cases is not lenited. Chan is substituted if the root begins with a vowel or an f followed by a vowel, which is also lenited.

Cha téid mi... (I won't go...)
Chan fheuch am peasan sin idir. (That brat won't try at all.)

In the interrogative, an is placed before the root of the verb. If the root begins with b, f, m, or p, am is used instead.

An ith thu sin? (Will you eat that?)
Am pòg thu i? (Will you kiss her?)

As in English, some forms are irregular - mostly common verbs. For example, the root for the word "to see" is faic, but the positive future tense form "will see" is chì.

The copula is bidh (will be), cha bhi (will not be), am bi (interrogative), and nach bi (negative interrogative).

Bidh mi a' tighinn! (I'll be coming!)
Cha bhi e an seo a-màireach. (He won't be here tomorrow.)
Am bi thu air falbh as t-samhradh? (Will you be away this summer?)
Nach bi sibh a' fuireach airson a' bhìdh? (Won't you be staying for the food, sir?)

The linking verb (that will be) is gum bi (positive) or nach bi (negative).

Tha ise ag ràdh gum bi esan a' dol. (She said that he'll be going.)
Tha mi an dòchas nach bi iad sgìth. (I hope that they won't be tired.)

Welsh

The future tense is expressed using auxiliary verbs:

"Mynd" + "Bod" : 'to go' + 'to be' = Dwi'n mynd i dy gasáu: I am going to hate you
Dwi'n mynd i'ch caniatáu: I am going to permit you.

Futurity can also be expressed by using words that imply future action

Dwi'n mynd yna heddiw: I am going there today.

External links

References

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Last updated on Thursday March 06, 2008 at 11:10:25 PST (GMT -0800)
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