Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T02:35:16.821Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Will: tense or modal or both?1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2010

RAPHAEL SALKIE
RAPHAEL SALKIE*
Affiliation:
School of Humanities, University of Brighton, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9PH, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Most grammarians refuse to treat will as a marker of future tense in English. We examine the arguments against treating will as a tense and find them weak; the arguments in favour of treating it as a modal also turn out to be poor. We argue that will should be treated as a marker of future tense, and that its so-called modal uses are either not modal or have independent explanations. The one exception is the volitional use of will: to account for this, we propose that willingness is a semantic relic from an earlier meaning of the word.

Type
Research Article
Information
English Language & Linguistics , Volume 14 , Issue 2: Future time reference in English , July 2010 , pp. 187 - 215
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Berbeira Gardón, José Luis. 1998. Relevance and modality. Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses 11, 3–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berbeira Gardón, José Luis. 2006. On the semantics and pragmatics of Will. In Carretero, Marta, Downing, Laura Hidalgo, Lavid, Julia, Martínez, Elena Caro, Neff, JoAnne, Pérez de Ayala, Soledad & Sánchez-Pardo, Esther (eds.), A pleasure of life in words: A festschrift for Angela Downing, vol. 1, 445–65. Madrid: Universidad Complutense de Madrid.Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas, Johansson, Stig, Leech, Geoffrey, Conrad, Susan & Finegan, Edward. 1999. Longman grammar of spoken and written English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan. 1985. Morphology: A study of the relation between meaning and form (Typological Studies in Language 9). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bybee, Joan & Dahl, Östen. 1989. The creation of tense and aspect systems in the languages of the world. Studies in Language 13 (1), 51–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bybee, Joan, Perkins, Revere & Pagliuca, William. 1991. Back to the future. In Traugott, Elizabeth Closs & Heine, Bernd (eds.), Approaches to grammaticalization, vol. 2: Focus on types of grammatical markers (Typological Studies in Language, a companion series to the journal Studies in Language 19(2)), 17–58. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bybee, Joan, Perkins, Revere & Pagliuca, William. 1994. The evolution of grammar: Tense, aspect and modality in the languages of the world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Carretero, Maria. 2004. Explorations on the use of English will/be going to contrasted with Spanish future indicative/ir a. In Facchinetti, Roberta & Palmer, Frank (eds.), English modality in perspective: Genre analysis and contrastive studies (English Corpus Linguistics 1), 205–30. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Caudal, Patrick & Vetters, Carl. (2005). Un traitement conjoint du conditionnel, du futur et de l'imparfait: Les temps comme des fonctions d'acte de langage. In Molendijk, Arie & Vet, Co (eds.), Temporalité et attitude: Structuration du discours et expression de la modalité (Cahiers Chronos 12), 109–24. Amsterdam: Rodopi.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Celle, Agnès. 1994. La traduction de will. Linguistique et Traduction, T. 3 (Paris: Ophrys), 87–139.Google Scholar
Celle, Agnès. 1997. Etude contrastive du futur français et de ses réalisations en anglais. Paris: Ophrys.Google Scholar
Celle, Agnès. 2005. The French future tense and English will as markers of epistemic modality. Languages in Contrast 5, 181–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Celle, Agnès. 2006. Temps et modalité: L'anglais, le français et l'allemand en contraste (Etudes contrastives 7). Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Coates, Jennifer. 1983. The semantics of the modal auxiliaries. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Comrie, Bernard. 1985. Tense. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Comrie, Bernard. 1989. On identifying future tenses. In Abraham, Werner & Janssen, Theo (eds.), Tempus – Aspekt – Modus: Die lexikalischen und grammatischen Formen in den Germanischen Sprachen, 51–63. Tübingen: Niemeyer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Copley, Bridget. 2009. The semantics of the future (Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics). London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahl, Östen. 1985. Tense and aspect systems. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Dahl, Östen. 2000. The grammar of future time reference in European languages. In Dahl, Östen (ed.), Tense and aspect in the languages of Europe, 309–28. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahl, Östen & Velupillai, Viveka. 2008. The future tense. In Haspelmath, Martin, Dryer, Matthew S., Gil, David & Comrie, Bernard (eds.), The world atlas of language structures online. Munich: Max Planck Digital Library, chapter 67. Available online at http://wals.info/feature/67. Accessed February 2010.Google Scholar
Declerck, Renaat. 1991. Tense in English: Its structure and use in discourse. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Declerck, Renaat, in collaboration with Susan Reed & Bert Cappelle. 2006. The grammar of the English verb phrase, vol.1: The grammar of the English tense system: A comprehensive analysis. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Declerck, Renaat & Reed, Susan. 2001. Conditionals: A comprehensive empirical analysis (Topics in English Linguistics [TiEL] 37). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Denison, David. 1992. Counterfactual may have. In Gerritsen, Marinel & Stein, Dieter (eds.), Internal and external factors in syntactic change (Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 61), 229–56. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Enç, Mürvet. 1996. Tense and modality. In Lappin, Shalom (ed.), The handbook of contemporary semantic theory, 345–58. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Fleischman, Suzanne. 1982. The future in thought and language: Diachronic evidence from Romance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Eric. 2001. A propos de will. In Dendale, Patrick and van der Auwera, Johan (eds.), Les verbes modaux (= Cahiers Chronos 8), 123–39. Amsterdam: Rodopi.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane. 1983. The semantics of will in Present-day British English: A unified account. Verhandelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, Klasse de Letteren, Jaargang 45.Google Scholar
Harder, Peter. 1996. Functional semantics: A theory of meaning, structure and tense in English (Trends in Linguistics Studies and Monographs 87). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopper, Paul J. & Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 1993. Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Huddleston, Rodney. 1995. The case against a future tense in English. Studies in Language 19, 399–446.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huddleston, Rodney & Pullum, Geoffrey et al. 2002. The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Janssen, Theo. 1996. Tense in reported speech and its frame of reference. In Janssen, Theo & van der Wurff, Wim (eds.), Reported speech: Forms and functions of the verb, 237–59. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Janssen, Theo. 1998. The referentiality of tenses. In Vogeleer, Svetlana, de Mulder, Walter & Depraetere, Ilse (eds.), Tense and aspect: The contextual processing of semantic indeterminacy (= Belgian Journal of Linguistics 12), 209–26. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Jaszczolt, Katarzyna M. 2009. Representing time: An essay on temporality as modality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jespersen, Otto. 1933. Essentials of English grammar. London: George Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Kissine, Mikhail. 2008. Why will is not a modal. Natural Language Semantics 16, 129–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klinge, Alex. 1993. The English modal auxiliaries: From lexical semantics to utterance interpretation. Journal of Linguistics 29, 315–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larreya, Paul. 1984. Le possible et le nécessaire: modalité et auxiliaires modaux en anglais britannique. Paris: Nathan.Google Scholar
Leech, Geoffrey, Hunt, Marianne, Mair, Christian & Smith, Nicolas. 2009. Change in contemporary English: A grammatical study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ludlow, Peter. 1999. Semantics, tense and time: An essay in the metaphysics of natural language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mindt, Dieter. 1995. An empirical grammar of the English verb: Modal verbs. Berlin: Cornelsen.Google Scholar
Mindt, Dieter. 2000. An empirical grammar of the English verb system. Berlin: Cornelsen.Google Scholar
Nicolle, Steve. 1998. Be going to and will: A monosemous account. English Language and Linguistics 2, 223–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Palmer, Frank. 1990. Modality and the English modals. 2nd edition. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Papafragou, Anna. 1998. Inference and word meaning: The case of modal auxiliaries. Lingua 105, 1–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Papafragou, Anna. 2000. Modality: Issues in the semantics-pragmatics interface (Current Research in the Semantics/Pragmatics Interface [CRiSPI], 6). Amsterdam: Elsevier.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey & Svartvik, Jan. 1972. A grammar of contemporary English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey & Svartvik, Jan. 1985. A comprehensive grammar of the English language. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Rocci, Andrea. 2002. L'interprétation épistémique du futur en italien et en français: une analyse procédurale. Cahiers de Linguistique Française 22, 241–74. Available online: http://clf.unige.ch/display.php?idFichier=9.Google Scholar
Salkie, Raphael. 2008. The INTERSECT multilingual corpus. Available online: http://artsresearch.brighton.ac.uk/research/academic/salkie/portfolio.Google Scholar
Salkie, Raphael. 2009. Degrees of modality. In Salkie, Raphael, Busuttil, Pierre & van der Auwera, Johan (eds.), Modality in English: Theory and description (Topics in English Linguistics [TiEL] 58), 79–103. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sperber, Dan & Wilson, Deirdre. 1986. Relevance: Communication and cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Tsangalidis, A. 1999. Will and tha: A comparative study of the category future. Thessaloniki: University Studio Press.Google Scholar
Vetters, Carl & Skibinska, Elzbieta. 1998. Le futur: Une question de temps ou de mode? Remarques générales et analyse du ‘présent-futur’ polonais. In Borillo, Andrée, Vetters, Carl & Vuillaume, Marcel (eds.), Regards sur l'aspect (= Cahiers Chronos 2), 247–66. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Wekker, Herman. 1976. The expression of future time in contemporary British English. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Welke, Klaus. 2005. Tempus im Deutschen: Rekonstruktion eines semantischen Systems (Linguistik – Impulse & Tendenzen 13). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar