The case of the invisible postman
The current status of the French future tense
Three somewhat conflicting semantic theories of the Futur Simple (FS) in spoken European French are discussed here: Fleischman’s (1982) “diachronic model”, which portrays the current semantics of the FS as largely modal; Schrott’s (1997) “conditioning” model, which views both the FS and Futur Composé as temporal and modal exponents selected in terms of context of use; Sokol’s (1999) “aspectual model” which sees the FS not as a tense but as a perfective aspect marker interacting with different verb action-classes. Evidence from empirical work relating to these theories does not support the modal view of the FS, and raises some questions for the aspectual model. Robust support emerges, however, for the FS as a future tense.
References (39)
References
Bauche, Henri. 1929.
Le langage populaire
. Paris: Payot.
Benveniste, Emile. 1986. Mutations of linguistic categories. In
Directions of Historical Linguistics: A Symposium
, Winifred Lehmann & Yakov Malkiel (eds), 83–94. Austin TX: University of Texas Press.
Bourciez, Eugène Joseph. 1967.
Éléments de Llinguistique romane
. Paris: Klincksieck.
Boyd, Julian & Thorne, James. 1969. The semantics of modal verbs.
Journal of Linguistics
5: 57–74.
Brunot, Ferdinand. 1953.
La pensée et la langue
. Paris: Masson.
Bybee, Joan L.1985.
Morphology
[Typological Studies in Language 9]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Bybee, Joan L, Perkins, Revere D. & Pagliucca, William. 1994.
The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect and Modality in the Languages of the World
. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.
Damourette, Jacques & Pichon, Edouard. 1931–36.
Des mots à la pensée
, Vol. 5
Verbe
. Paris: Éditions d’Artrey.
Emirkanian, Louisette & Sankoff, David. 1985. Le futur simple et le futur périphrastique. In
Les tendances dynamiques du français parlé à Montréal
, Monique Lemieux & Henrietta Cedergren (eds), 198–201. Montreal: Gouvernement du Québec.
Ernout, Alfred. 1914.
Morphologie historique du latin
. Paris: Klincksieck.
Fleischman, Suzanne. 1982.
The Future in Thought and Language: Diachronic Evidence from Romance
. Cambridge: CUP.
Flydal, Leiv. 1943.
Aller et venir suivis de l’infinitif comme expressions de rapports temporels
. Oslo: Dybwad.
Gobert, David & Maisier, Véronique. 1995. Valeurs modales du futur et du conditionnel et leurs emplois en français contemporain.
The French Review
68: 1003–1014.
Gougenheim, Georges. 1962.
Système grammatical de la langue française
. Paris: d’Artrey.
Gougenheim, Georges. 1971.
Étude sur les périphrases verbales de la langue française
. Paris: Librairie A.G. Nizet.
Gougenheim, Georges, Rivenc, Paul, Michéa, René, & Sauvageot, Aurélien. 1956.
L’ Elaboration du français fondamental
. Paris: Didier.
Grévisse, Maurice. 1980.
Le bon usage
. Paris: Ducolot.
Hablützel, Ernst. 1965.
Der ausdruck des zukünftigen im Französischen
. Winterthur: Keller.
Harris, Martin. 1978.
The Evolution of French Syntax: A Comparative Approach
. London: Longman.
Helland, Hans Petter. 1995. Futur simple et futur périphrastique: Du sens aux emplois.
Revue Romane
30: 3–26.
Huddleston, Rodney D. & Pullum, Geoffrey K. 2002.
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language
. Cambridge: CUP.
Imbs, Paul.1960.
Emploi des temps verbaux en français moderne
. Paris: Klincksieck.
Le Bidois, Robert & Le Bidois, George. 1967.
Syntaxe du français moderne
. Paris: Auguste Picard.
Lightfoot, David. 1979.
Principles of Diachronic Syntax
. Cambridge: CUP.
Lorenz, Bettina. 1989.
Die konkurrenz zwischen dem ‘Futur Simple’ und dem ‘Futur Périphrastique’ im gesprochenen Französisch der gegenwart
. Münster: Kleinheinrich.
Lyons, John. 1977.
Semantics
. Cambridge: CUP.
Nyrop, Kristoffer. 1930.
Grammaire historique de la langue française
, Vol 6:
Syntaxe: particules et verbes
. Copenhagen: Gyldendansk.
Palmer, Frank R.1986.
Mood and modality
. Cambridge: CUP.
Poplack, Shana & Dion, Nathalie. 2009. Prescription vs. praxis: The evolution of future temporal reference in French.
Language
85(3): 557–588.
Reid, Thomas Bertram Wallace. 1955. On the analysis of the tense system in French.
Revue des Langues Romanes
19: 23–38.
Schrott, Angela. 1997.
Futurität im Französischen der gegenwart. Semantik und pragmatik der tempora der zukunft
[Romanica Monacensia 50]. Tübingen: Narr.
Sokol, Monika. 1999.
Das zusammenspiel der verbalkategorien und die französischen futura
. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.
Sundell, Lars-Göran. 1991.
Le temps futur en français moderne
. Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell.
Togeby, Knud. 1982.
Grammaire française
, Vol II:
Les formes personelles du verbe
. Kopenhagen: Magnus Berg, Ghani Merad, Ebbe Spang-Hansen.
Vet, Co. 1994. Future tense and discourse representation. In
Tense and Aspect in Discourse
, Co Vet & Carl Vetters (eds) 49–76. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Wales, M.L.1982. The rise of aller and Infinitive as a Periphrastic future. PhD dissertation, Monash University.
Wales, M.L.1983. The semantic distribution of aller and infinitive and the future tense in spoken French.
General Linguistics
23: 19–28.
Wales, M.L.2007. Modal functions of future tenses in French. In
Selected Papers from the 2006 meeting of the Australian Linguistic Society. Annual Meeting of the Australian Linguistic Society
, Brisbane, Australia. 7–8 July, Ilana Mushin & Mary Laughren (eds), 1–14.
Wilmet, Marc. 1970.
Le système de l’indicatif en moyen français
. Geneva: Droz.
Cited by (1)
Cited by one other publication
Tristram, Anna
2021.
Variation and change in future temporal reference with avoir and être.
Journal of French Language Studies 31:1
► pp. 25 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 24 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.