This paper addresses the controversy as to whether English will is appropriately analysed as a future tense auxiliary or a modal auxiliary: it examines the place of will within the verbal system and argues in detail on both formal and semantic grounds that it belongs with the uncontroversial modal auxiliaries can, must, may, etc. A crucial step in the formal argument is the demonstration that would needs to be analysed as the preterite counterpart of will (not as a distinct lexeme). The paper demonstrates the modal component in the meaning of will and argues against a grammatical split between modal will and future tense will.
2010. Beyond aspect:will be -ingandshall be -ing. English Language and Linguistics 14:2 ► pp. 239 ff.
Depraetere, Ilse & Susan Reed
2020. Mood and Modality in English. In The Handbook of English Linguistics, ► pp. 207 ff.
Duffley, Patrick J.
2000. Gerund versus Infinitive as Complement of Transitive Verbs in English. Journal of English Linguistics 28:3 ► pp. 221 ff.
Giannakidou, Anastasia
2014. The futurity of the present and the modality of the future: a commentary on Broekhuis and Verkuyl. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 32:3 ► pp. 1011 ff.
Marty, Paul & Jacopo Romoli
2021. Presuppositions, implicatures, and contextual equivalence. Natural Language Semantics 29:2 ► pp. 229 ff.
Packard, Grant, Jonah Berger, Reihane Boghrati, Andrew T Stephen & David Dubois
2023. How Verb Tense Shapes Persuasion. Journal of Consumer Research 50:3 ► pp. 645 ff.
Robertson, Cole, Sean Roberts, Asifa Majid & Robin Dunbar
2022. Language and Economic Behaviour: Future Tense Use Causes Less Not More Temporal Discounting. SSRN Electronic Journal
Robertson, Cole & Seán G. Roberts
2023. Not When But Whether: Modality and Future Time Reference in English and Dutch. Cognitive Science 47:1
SALKIE, RAPHAEL
2010. Will: tense or modal or both?. English Language and Linguistics 14:2 ► pp. 187 ff.
WADA, NAOAKI
1996. DOES DOC BROWN KNOW WHICH EXPRESSION TAKES US BACK TO THE FUTURE: BE GOING TO OR WILL?. ENGLISH LINGUISTICS 13:0 ► pp. 169 ff.
WADA, NAOAKI
2000. BE GOING TO AND BE ABOUT TO. ENGLISH LINGUISTICS 17:2 ► pp. 386 ff.
WADA, NAOAKI
2001. THE CASE FOR THE COMPOSITIONAL TENSE THEORY. ENGLISH LINGUISTICS 18:2 ► pp. 428 ff.
WADA, NAOAKI
2013. On the so-called future-progressive construction. English Language and Linguistics 17:3 ► pp. 391 ff.
White, Peter
2008. Modality as dialogue: a Bakhtinian reanalysis of epistemic stance. <i>WORD</i> 59:1-2 ► pp. 143 ff.
Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, Emma Moore, Linda van Bergen & Willem B. Hollmann
2019. Categories, Constructions, and Change in English Syntax,
Ziegeler, Debra
2006. Omnitemporal will. Language Sciences 28:1 ► pp. 76 ff.
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