Does English have a future tense? |
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| Votes: 457 |
Comments: 8 |
Added: August 2003 |
Comments:
| NASERKHEIL - 13th November 2003 07:13
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| ARE NOT WE TALKING ABOUT THE FUTURE?
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| andy - 27th November 2003 10:31
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| This very website told me it doesn't.
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| Andy HB - 28th November 2003 10:27
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| 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, ...'.
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| willbut - 7th December 2003 14:07
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| 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.
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| grahamcurrie - 10th February 2004 00:56
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| 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.
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| jorge - 16th August 2006 21:49
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| 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.
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| RonBee - 25th November 2006 16:18
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Willbut, you could be right.
:-)
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| Jotter Scalems - 20th January 2008 00:22
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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.
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