A Cross-linguistic Look at Future Markers

Abstract

In an effort to contribute to a determination as to whether English will is a future tense marker or a contingency marker, the uses of future markers as traditionally analyzed in Spanish, Alsatian, Turkish, Hebrew, Malay and Korean are investigated. Means of indicating future time, ranges of meaning of future-marked sentences, and the use of future in contingency clauses are compared cross-linguistically. It is concluded that when alternatives exist, speakers prefer to reserve the future marker for situations in which they are less than certain regarding the occurrence of an event.