Poll: Does English have a future tense?
Does English have a future tense? |
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Votes: 728
Comments: 14
Added: August 2003
Comments:
| NASERKHEIL - 13th November 2003 07:13 |
| ARE NOT WE TALKING ABOUT THE FUTURE? |
| andy - 27th November 2003 10:31 |
| This very website told me it doesn't. |
| Andy HB - 28th November 2003 10:27 |
| Englsih does not have a future tense in the strict sense of the word. Unlike other languages, there is no verb form that indicates future meaning (in the same way thet '-ed' indicates the past tense. rather there are 12 or so forms of construction to indicate the future - from the use of the auxiliaries 'will' or 'going to', to the the present simple or continuous with a future time adverb - such as 'tomorrow, next week, ...'. |
| willbut - 7th December 2003 14:07 |
| We can talk about future time easily enough, but I'd say we use the present tense to do that, and also the past tense for unlikely or imaginary futures. |
| grahamcurrie - 10th February 2004 00:56 |
| There is no clear answer to this question because there is no universal definition of "tense".If regarded as purely about verb inflexions, there is only one tense in English. If the adding of auxilliary verbs constitutes a tense, then there are many, including a future tense. |
| jorge - 16th August 2006 21:49 |
| English has only 4 definite tenses: Simple present and past tenses plus Simple present and past perfect tenses and those that derive from them.if you feel like calling them tenses, be my guest. I won't count them. The rest are modal verbs. |
| RonBee - 25th November 2006 16:18 |
| Willbut, you could be right. :-) |
| Jotter Scalems - 20th January 2008 00:22 |
| I voted yes. I compared to Japanese. I call you=>I'll call you tomorrow denwa o kakeru=> ashita (tomorrow) denwa o kakeru. I vote against shortsighted language scientists, who are giving people wrong impressions by denying that their langauge has a future tense if there is a change in verbal use in their language when they talk about the future. |
| mje - 19th April 2009 08:42 |
| No. Perhaps I'm one of those "shortsighted language scientists" Jotter mentions, but there is no verbal inflection meaning "future" in English. Instead, we talk about the future using a variety of verb forms including present tense (simple, progressive) and certain modal auxiliaries (not only will) combined with another verb. This is the view taken by such weighty authorities as Quirk et al. (1985) and Huddleston & Pullam (2002). |
| hansy - 29th May 2009 10:31 |
| though many controversaries arised that english doesnt have future tense..but it has with the modal support of will.... |
| Andygodatenglish - 4th July 2009 00:24 |
| dumbasses of course english has a future tense... just say "will" or "going to". for future imperfect you can write "shall". there i have proven english has a futer tense, i am right and currently 187 of you are monkeys. |
| Not as good as the hype - 6th July 2009 12:04 |
| The future imperfect is will/shall + be + -ing, so your claims to have proved anything are shaky, well, wrong. |
| chris - 4th November 2011 04:56 |
| Our reliance on Latin as a model for grammar is one possible reason for this need to describe English as having a future tense. It is true that 'will' indicates futurity, but in some cases, 'will' cannot be used. Also, most languages have some way of indicating futurity. It becomes useless trying to analyse languages if we have a preconceived notion that every language has a future tense in some form. While 'will' indicates futurity, it behaves grammatically like a modal verb, and we should treat it as such. English only has 2 inflected tense forms (the past tense '-ed' form, and present tense [which has no visible suffix]). It is better to treat English as having a Past and Non-Past tense. Also, aspectual distinctions, like perfect, imperfect, progressive, etc are not tenses. 'past imperfect' is a tense in its own right if the verb has a distinct ending from, say, 'past perfect', or 'present imperfect'. Given that English uses an auxiliary verb, English has no grammatical aspect either -- even if it has other ways of indicating it. |
| Jon - 23rd December 2011 08:31 |
| If it has a name therefore it is!!!! Future tense, compound noun, but a noun none the less. |
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