Future tense: Encyclopedia II - Future tense - Future tenses in English

Future tense - Future tenses in English

In English, as in most Germanic languages, there is no future tense in the sense of a specific inflection that marks a verb for futurity after the fashion of the markers that appear in the preterite forms of the past tense. Rather, the future tense is marked by the use of a number of auxiliary verbs.

The verb shall formerly appeared as a future tense marker. It is now obsolescent in that function, but appears in a desiderative function with subjunctive force in legal ordinances and similar documents:

• Each animal carried in an aircraft shall be confined in a container ...

and in strong declarations of intent or resolve:

• (W)e shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender ...

Now will serves as the ordinary marker of the English future tense. The former distinction between shall and will may have been levelled due to the reduction, in most ordinary speech, of either form to the contraction 'll. See shall for a discussion on where properly to use these two auxiliary verbs.

The verb phrase be going to also marks a future construction in English; it too is frequently contracted. Going-to future marks future planned activity and prediction based on fact. For example: I am going to do my homework tomorrow. It is going to rain on Wednesday. "Going to" is often contracted in spoken English to "gonna". For example: It's gonna rain on Wednesday.

Future tense - Simple Future Tense

The structure of the Simple Future Tense is:

To make a sentence negative, simply add not between the auxiliary verb and the main verb. To make it a question, exchange the subject and auxiliary verb.

The simple future tense can be used in conjunction with the verb to think as well as predictions (I think I will watch a movie. There will be a colony on mars by 2050.). It can also be used to indicate a state of being, such as I will be in Chicago.

Future tense - Future Continuous Tense

The structure of the Future Continuous Tense is:

To make a sentence negative, simply add not between will and be. To make it a question, exchange the subject and auxiliary verb will.

The future continuous tense is used to indicate an action that occurs at a certain moment in the future. The action will start before the moment, but will not have finished. It will be snowing when you come home.

Future tense - Future Perfect Tense

The structure of the Future Perfect Tense is:

To make a sentence negative, simply add not between will and have. To make it a question, exchange the subject and auxiliary verb will.

The future perfect tense is used to express an action in the future before another action in the future. In essence, it indicates past in the future. The football game will have finished before you leave work.

Future tense - Future Perfect Continuous Tense

The structure of the Future Perfect Continuous Tense is:

To make a sentence negative, simply add not between will and have. To make it a question, exchange the subject and auxiliary verb will.

The future perfect continuous tense is used to express a long action before some point in the future. I will have been waiting for two hours when her plane arrives.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Future tenses in English", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki