[Grammar] I won't have finished my work until Saturday.

[beachboy]

1 - By Saturday I will have finished my work.
2 - I won't have finished my work until Saturday.

How common is it, in everyday English, to use the Future Perfect? Would there be more natural ways to express the same ideas as in the sentences above (which I myself came up with) with no or little change in meaning? What would a native say?

 

[abaka]

Every one of the English verbal tenses (18 with the emphatic forms) exists because it is reasonably common and natural.

Precision in specifying temporal relations is absolutely fundamental to the way the native speakers of the language learn to think.

 

[abaka]

I'll resist the temptation to challenge that number - eighteen.

I'm too weak to resist. In the indicative only, uncoloured by modality, conditionality, or subjunctives:

Present: I run -- I am running -- I have run -- I have been running -- I do run
Past: I ran -- I was running -- I had run -- I had been running -- I did run
Future: I'll run -- I'll be running -- I'll have run -- I'll have been running
Future reported in the past: I'd run -- I'd be running -- I'd have run -- I'd have been running

 

[abaka]

We're about to be exiled to Language Discussion, I think. ;-)

(1) English verb tenses as taught both to learners and to schoolchildren combine linguistic tense and aspect, thus producing 4x4+2 = 18 tenses, or perhaps 16 if the emphatic do forms are to be considered modal.

(2) Will can definitely be modal, to mark desire as opposed to the obligation carried by shall. Unlike shall in contemporary speech however, it and its past would are also, and more importantly, neutral markers of future and reported-future time. In

I will write my final exam tomorrow
He told me last year that by this summer he would have been studying English for half his life

the auxiliaries will and would carry no more modality than the auxiliaries have or been.

As for phrasings such as he used to go there every day and he is going to tell her tomorrow, I believe they are auxiliary in English in the same way as the periphrastic forms are auxiliary in in Latin. (Obviously the only strictly non-periphrastic forms in English are the simple present and past.)

 

[Rover_KE]

We're about to be exiled to Language Discussion, I think. ;-)

This thread could run and run and has been relocated. I don't know why anybody should use exiled, banished or excommunicated when the OP has been asked and answered and the subsequent debate goes well over the heads of our client ESL students.

 

[Tdol]

We're about to be exiled to Language Discussion, I think. ;-)

(1) English verb tenses as taught both to learners and to schoolchildren combine linguistic tense and aspect,

That's the issue- I agree with Piscean about there being two tenses, but accept that most learners will have been taught differently. I teach future forms rather than a tense, but don't worry when people call it a tense.

 

[TheParser]

1 - By Saturday I will have finished my work.

NOT A TEACHER

Hello, Beachboy:

Here is the opinion of two American scholars.

1. "I will have finished all this typing by 5 p.m." They say that "the same meaning can be expressed using the copula BE plus adjectives or participles without using a perfect tense."

a. "The typing will be {available/completed} by noon."

*****

2. I have noticed that all of my books tell me that the future perfect is usually limited to choice (formal) English.

a. So I am guessing that many American speakers might be more comfortable with "My work will be finished by Saturday."


Best wishes



Source: Marianne Celce-Murcia and Diane Larsen-Freeman, The Grammar Book An ESL/EFL Teacher's Course (1983 edition), page 65.

 

[beachboy]

That's what I thought I had read somewhere :-D

 

[abaka]

Piscean et al -- This discussion has to a great extent been a matter of definition, I think, but perhaps we can agree on the following:

(1) English verbs have and have always had, going back to the earliest periods, two synthetic verb tenses, traditionally called the (simple) present and past.

(2) English verbs have four incontrovertible aspects: indefinite or simple, perfect, continuous, and perfect-continuous. They also have several auxiliary forms that may also be considered aspects. The four main aspects have the full set of affirmative, negative and interrogative forms in all temporal ("tense") variations; the auxiliary aspects do not.

(3) The future was originally expressed through a variety of modal constructions, but in modern speech, one of these, the will-form, has come to express no more than an affirmation of certainty in the outcome.

(Note: I strongly hold that any future tense is basically an affirmation of the predicate's certainty of outcome. If we deny this expression as a tense, we deny the possibility of a future tense in any language.)

(4) In addition to the "future" will-forms in four aspects, there are also corresponding reported-speech future-in-the-past would-forms in four aspects, which coincide with the possible conditional forms, but are semantically distinct. This is an interesting, and, as far as I know, characteristically English feature.

(5) The future and future-in-the-past forms being considered as marking tenses, there are 4x4=16 distinct indicative tense/aspect combinations available in English, all often called "verb tenses" in the classroom, and all of which are reasonably common and equally natural.

(6) There exist emphatic forms for past and present -- another characteristically English feature. . Whether these exhibit modality or aspect or something else is not altogether clear.

 

[jutfrank]

If I may join in the conversation ...

(2) English verbs have four incontrovertible aspects: indefinite or simple, perfect, continuous, and perfect-continuous.

To quibble, I prefer to think of the perfect-continuous as simply a combination of two aspects. It may best be considered a single form, but it's not a separate aspect in itself. (I know that's very pedantic—sorry.)

I strongly hold that any future tense is basically an affirmation of the predicate's certainty of outcome. If we deny this expression as a tense, we deny the possibility of a future tense in any language.)

I agree with you on both points.

(4) In addition to the "future" will-forms in four aspects, there are also corresponding reported-speech future-in-the-past would-forms in four aspects, which coincide with the possible conditional forms, but are semantically distinct. This is an interesting, and, as far as I know, characteristically English feature.

I'm not completely sure I understand what you mean about coinciding with the possible conditional forms.

(5) The future and future-in-the-past forms being considered as marking tenses, there are 4x4=16 distinct indicative tense/aspect combinations available in English, all often called "verb tenses" in the classroom, and all of which are reasonably common and equally natural.

We teachers do inaccurately tend to call them tenses, yes. I personally tend not to present a picture of more than (3 x 4 =) 12 at any one time (past/present/future x simple/continuous/perfect/perfect-continuous). This is largely out of custom, and largely not to overload learners with complexity.

(6) There exist emphatic forms for past and present -- another characteristically English feature. . Whether these exhibit modality or aspect or something else is not altogether clear.

I don't think they exhibit aspect at all. I wouldn't say they exhibit modality, either.

It seems to me that forms with BE going to ,with its linking of the present and future, is very similar to the present perfect, with its linking of the present and past. I think that BE going to constructions can be regarded as aspectual.

I too agree that the idea of BE going to as having prospective aspect, symmetrical to the present perfect, is a very useful way of understanding usage.

Actually, the future was expressed in Old English with the present tense; willan (wish/want) and sculan (be obliged) were also used if their meanings were required.

I find the history of how willan came to be used to express futurity very interesting.

In those Indo- European languages that have a single-word future tense, that single word appears to have originally been a combination of the lexical verb and a verb meaning 'become', or in the case of modern French, 'have'.

Yes. And the German werden also functions as a future-tense-marking auxiliary.

 

[jutfrank]

You are most welcome - as long as you agree with me. ;-)

You know, I really don't think there's too much of importance that we do disagree on. There's that one key point about conditionals that I don't think we'll ever agree on. (I'll save mentioning it for now but you probably know which I mean.) Plus, there's also the ongoing question (in my my mind at least) as to which of us really misunderstands the relation of form to function. ;-)

By the way, if you ever feel a need to share your TAM 'magnum opus' with anyone who has a genuine interest in the subject matter, a constructively critical eye, and the faintest idea of what you're on about, I'm more than happy to accept the challenge.

I used not to worry too much about labelling the will form the future tense. I saw my job as helping learners communicate effectively in English, not quibbling about the terminology of grammar.

Right. You probably know I feel the same about labels.

However, I was always concerned about learners using will unnaturally. I realised that this was often because they had learnt this as 'the future tense', and it was for them the default way of expressing futurity. That's when I stopped accepting this label. Once my learners were disabused of the idea that there was a future tense in English and accepted that will was merely one of several ways of expressing futurity., their over-use of will declined rapidly.

You've described the world of my day job precisely. It sometimes feels as if you don't have any other choice but to take this approach. As an English teacher, 50% of my work involves 'unteaching' my students not to misuse will. The other 50% is spent picking up pens that students have dropped onto the floor.

I believe that the present perfect is an aspect, and prefer to thing of it as the retrospective aspect. However, calling it a tense does no harm, in my opinion.

It's hard not to call it a tense, really. For one, that's what a lot of coursebooks and references call it, and for two, what other term is there? A 'tense-aspect'? It's not that the present perfect itself is the aspect, right? The aspect is only the 'perfect' part. The past perfect is just as much retrospective as the present perfect.

 

[Glizdka]

Not a teacher
------
If I may add something from the perspective of a non-native-speaker/learner...

I have yet to see a single textbook in Poland that uses the term aspect. They list tenses, such as the present continuous, usually presented as, sort of, separate entities, in separate units, and the term that is used is always tense. I assume it's because it's just easier to explain things simply when someone just wants to learn a (foreign) language rather than linguistic terminology (I can easily see the benefits of that approach).

However, the first time I saw the term aspect, I thought it made sense to distinguish between tense and aspect. The first clue is that tenses can exist "on their own", whereas aspects can't; they need to "attach" to something. The second clue is that what aspects can attach to doesn't have to be a tense, it can be, for example, to-infinitive.

"It appeared to have been damaged."
"It seems to be going well."

Before I discovered the term aspect, I created a thee-dimensional matrix (that probably had already been created by someone; it's pretty simple), where we have the past/present split on the X axis, the continuous/non-continuous split on the Y axis, and the perfect/non-perfect split on the Z axis. This gives eight (2x2x2) possible "tenses", or "tense and aspect combinations", or "tenspects" (I like the last one best). The drawing below is pretty crude (I have some nostalgia for using MS Paint), but it illustrates how I see it.

I object to treating will as a tense because all other modal verbs would have to be considered tenses as well then.

Please, do correct me if I'm wrong in anything I've said.

 

[Glizdka]

I don't know what you mean by tenses existing on their own or an aspect's 'need to "attach" to something'.

Perhaps you mean that all finite verb forms show tense, but not all show aspect. Thus tensed forms can exist without aspect, but aspect forms cannot exist without tense.

I believe this is exactly what I meant, sir.

 

[jutfrank]

I tried to send you a PM, but got this message: jutfrank has exceeded their stored private messages quota and cannot accept further messages until they clear some space.

Piscean—I just tried to respond to your latest PM and had exactly the same issue.

Anyway, no need for you to respond there. I look forward to receiving your email. Thanks.

 

[emsr2d2]

I believe this is exactly what I meant. [STRIKE]sir.[/STRIKE]

Please don't refer to users here as "sir" (or "madam" for that matter). Not only is it unnecessarily formal but it suggests that you assume users are male. That is not always the case.