part of speech of "be going to"

[hela]

Dear teachers,

Would you please tell me how I should parse "be going to" in the following sentence ?

I'm going to tidy my room tomorrow.

Should I consider "am going to" as a one immediate constituent = auxiliary verb
"tidy" = main verb

OR

should I split it into several parts of speech --> "am + going + to"?

Many thanks
Hela

 

[Frank Antonson1]

I call "to be going to..." a periphrastic future tense. Replaceable with "will". The same form of future tense occurs in at least several, if not all, Romance languages. It is not available in German.

 

[5jj]

Should I consider "am going to" as a one immediate constituent

That's one way of looking at it. Another is to consider it as the present progressive (first person singular) of the verb GO followed by an infinitive particle and the base form of the verb TIDY (or, if you prefer, the to- infinitive of the verb TIDY).

The present progressive of the verb GO is itself constructed with the auxiliary verb BE (first person singular) followed by the -ing form (present participle) of the verb GO.

 

[Frank Antonson1]

And it occurred to me that there is really no other way in English to say "I WAS going to tidy..." I don't think "will" has a past tense. I find that curious.