Future Markers of English

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,3, Ruhr-University of Bochum (Englisches Seminar ), course: Tense, Aspect and Modality, language: English, abstract: This paper is concerned with the question whether English has such a thing as a future tense and if this is the case, how it is formed. As a fact, 'it is not uncommon for a language to have more than one gram which has future as a use' (Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca 243). As we shall see, the English language possesses a wide range of future markers which in general only contribute to the variety of a language: '[T]he continued vialibilty of multiple forms in a given language is insured by differences in the range of uses to which each may be put' (ibid.). In this context I shall give an overview of the tense/time debate which has heated up amongst scholars and try to differentiate between the main forms of English future markers.