Future temporal reference in French: An introduction

Abstract

This thematic issue of the Canadian Journal of Linguistics explores the expression of future temporal reference (FTR), that is, the different ways of expressing that an event will occur after the moment of speech, in French. Despite numerous studies on this topic dating as far back as the 1980s (Deshaies and Laforge 1981, Emirkanian and Sankoff 1985, Poplack and Turpin 1999, King and Nadasdi 2003, Wagner and Sankoff 2011, a number of hotly debated points continue to incite discussion. To shed light on some of these issues, we assembled articles that deal with FTR from a range of perspectives.In most contemporary varieties of spoken French, three main forms (or variants) are used to express that an event will take place in the future: the inflected future (or synthetic or morphological future, henceforth IF) as in (1); the periphrastic future (or analytic future, composed of the semi-auxiliary aller 'to go' followed by the infinitive, henceforth PF), as in (2); and the futurate present (or present-for-future, i.e., use of the present indicative morphological form with an expressly future temporal reference, henceforth P), as in (3).(1) Je quitterai la semaine qui vient.'I will leave next week.'(2) Je vais quitter la semaine qui vient. 'I'm going to leave next week.' (3) Je quitte la semaine qui vient. 'I'm leaving next week.'At first glance, FTR may seem a somewhat mundane feature of French, especially considering that, on the surface, the same three variants (i.e., the IF, PF, and P) are consistently found across varieties. However, once we examine the underlying system of linguistic and social constraints that govern the alternation among these three forms, we begin to observe divergence across varieties. This raises new questions, not only regarding the constraints operating on these forms, but also with Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique, 61(3): 231

Is the future near or far depending on the verb tense markers used? An experimental investigation into the effects of the grammaticalization of the future

“…German future tense use is not obligatory; this means that German speakers can also use the present tense to talk about the future, and they even do this quite often [ 27 ]. In contrast, for French speakers it is more common to use a more obligatory form–at least when written [ 28 ]. For this paper, we use the terms high and low degrees of FTR to refer to two different situations, as in Jäggi et al [ 16 ].…”