fixin' to

[Suzanne E Kemmer]

I think John's point about _fixin' [a N]_ was to suggest
a possible source construction for the periphrastic
future with _fixin' to_.  The lexical meaning of
_fixin'_ with nouns is close to 'preparing', and
it makes sense that the word has been extended to
infinitive constructions with a similar meaning.

And 'preparing' seems a perfectly reasonable lexical source
meaning for a periphrastic future, even though it's
not as schematic as 'go' or 'do' or 'make'.

--Suzanne