I
Simple Future
1. will/ shall
Future
tense forms
are formed by placing
· ‘will’* before base verbs in
first person singular and plural ( I and we)
· ‘will’ before base verbs in
second person singular and plural (you, you)
· ‘will’ before base verbs in
third person singular and plural (nouns, he, she, it,
they).
I will/ ’ll
come tomorrow. You will (’ll) meet me this evening. She will (’ll) see you.
Will you
talk to him? Will he
oblige? When will she
attend to the file?
Note: ’ll is the shortened form of
‘will’.
Note:
*Traditional
grammar says shall is the correct future auxiliary to be used with ‘I’ and
‘we’.
But
‘……, many people avoid shall except
in the interrogative and use will all the time for
affirmative
and negative…..’ say Thomson and Martinet in their A Practical English
Grammar.
Quirk et
al in their A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language also say the
use
of shall with I and we ‘is nowadays widely ignored.’ People use will or ‘ll with ‘I’ and ‘we’.
In other
words, people say ‘I’ll meet you tomorrow’, not ‘I shall meet you
tomorrow’. Shall
is
used with I or we in interrogatives to seek
response from a listener or to make suggestions
about
shared activities:
Shall I talk to my superior about this?
(seeking response)
Shall we meet at Suresh’s house for a discussion? (seeking suggestions)
2. be + going to
+ full verbs
I’m going to complain if
things don’t improve. (future fulfilment of the present)
She’s going to have a
baby. (future result of present cause)
3. be + -ing
participle
The match is starting at 2.30
(tomorrow).
4. present
simple tense form (bare verbs)
School closes on 31 March.
What will you do if I don’t
marry you? (conditional clause)
I’ll inform her when she
arrives. (time clause)
5. be +
to-infinitive
The Prime Minister is to visit
Japan next month. (present arrangement for future)
You’re to meet the Company
representative and collect the documents.
(order about a future
duty/responsibility)
6. Verbs in
imperative
Be quiet!
Search the room
thoroughly!
Make yourself a cup of
tea.
Don’t drop it!
Don’t wait for me!
7. other
verbs
The weather may improve.
(tomorrow)
You must have dinner with us.
(sometime soon)
I intend to resign next Monday.
I hope to be married soon.
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II Future Progressive
This
expresses
1.
actions that will be progressive at some point of time in future time:
When you reach the end of the bridge, I’ll be waiting to show you the way.
2.
actions that describe normal procedures and routine events in future time:
The Inspector will be visiting your school again in three months.
Good bye! We’ll be seeing you.
I’ll be following your progress with great interest.
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III
Future Perfect
1. This expresses
actions that began in the past time, goes
on in the present time and will complete some
time in the future:
We will have arrived in New York by this time tomorrow.
It’s now 6.30 p.m.; I’ll have finished my work by 10 o’clock.
In another year or so, you’ll have forgotten all about him.
2. assumptions or
possibilities in the present time:
You’ll have heard, I expect, that
Srikala is going to be married in another two weeks.
It’s five o’clock; they’ll have arrived
home by now.
3.
actions or states of some duration up to a certain time in the future:
On July 29, we’ll have been married
for 38 years.
At the end of this academic year,
you’ll have taught for 43 years.
Note:
This use of future perfect means that the action/state will not complete at a
given time
in the future but will in all
likelihood continue to be true.
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IV The messages
are different between simple future and future progressive:
When will you pay
back the money?
(=I’m not interested in your
problems; I want my money back.)
When will you be
paying back the money?
(How soon can you pay the money
back? / Repayment here is a matter of course.)
We will fly at 30,000
feet.
(The pilot had just decided to fly
at that height.)
We will be flying at 30,000
feet.
(It’s the normal height that the
pilot is talking about.)
The next train to Tambaram will
arrive at platform four.
The next train Tambaram will be
arriving at platform four.
There is no direct human
involvement. The difference between these
two is not as
important here as it is in the
other two examples. However, the future progressive is
more informal than the simple
future.
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V Future tense
as a concept
It’s
said that there’s no future tense in the English language.
The
argument goes like this:
1.
To form past and present tenses,
we inflect
(= make changes in) regular verbs
with the addition of ‘s/es’, ‘-ing’ and
‘ed’ at the end
and
we inflect irregular verbs with difference in their spellings:
|
Full verbs
|
Primary verbs
|
||||
|
tense
forms
|
regular
|
Irregular
|
Be
|
have
|
do
|
|
base
form
-s
form
-ing
participle
past
form
-ed
participle
|
talk
talks
talking
talked
talked
|
begin speak put
begins speaks puts
beginning speaking
putting
began spoke put
begun spoken put
|
Be
am/is/are*
being
was/were*
been
|
have
has
having
had
had
|
do
does
doing
did
done
|
*
These are derivatives of ‘be’.
It
is these inflections (=additions and different spellings ) that result in the
past and present forms of full and primary verbs.
2.
There is no such inflection in the tense forms with regard to expressing
‘future’. We
don’t make any changes by adding to the
verbs or changing their spellings. We simply
use different expressions to convey
‘future’ time:
1. will/ ’ll for ALL ‘persons’ before full verbs
and primary verbs
indicates actions and states
as occurring in future time:
full verbs
primary verbs
I’ll }
We’ll } I’ll be rich soon.
You’ll } talk to the manager. I’ll have a solution soon.
He’ll } I’ll do what you say.
She’ll }
They’ll }
Inflection
occurs thought the addition of ‘s’ or ‘es’ or ‘ed’; this is not a uniform
happening because we make changes in the spelling of a verb. The key word is ‘addition’.
If one or two letters can be added at the
end of a verb or one or two letters can be changed to indicate the time of an
action or a state, the addition of will/shall
before a verb also indicates the time of an action or state.
I
think we’re splitting hairs.
For
instance, if ‘go’ can transform itself into ‘went’ and if ‘go’ can take
derivatives of ‘be’ for present or past progressive forms, why can’t ‘go’ take ‘will’
to form future tense form to indicate future time? ‘Will’ is an addition just
as ‘es’ is an addition to ‘go’,
since both are additions, whether the addition gets attached to the verb or
placed before it, where’s the harm saying we have the future tense forms.
Another
argument is tense forms are only AIDS to expressing time, they don’t substitute
‘time’. Simply put, several forms as a bunch express the three times’. What are
these finer distinctions for if not to serve OUR intentions, to carry messages?
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