[Lingtyp] parallel development of future-in-the-past and reportive

[Pier Marco Bertinetto]

Dear Björn,
this sort of combined meaning is also observed in Italian and no doubt in
other Romance languages, although I do not dare to name specific ones
because other colleagues (Mario Squartini, for one) have studied these
matters in much greater detail.
At any rate, the last clause of your first example could be translated as:
(Ciò) *sarebbe accaduto* nel 1999
with the past conditional, which is both (a) future-in-the-past (in
pre-modern Italian, the simple conditional was more common, butit is now
obsolete in this function, although perfectly vital in its other uses) and
(b) an evidential marker.
This does not exhaust the semantic possibilities of the Italian
conditional, but it is enough to answer your question.
Needless to say, meanings (a) and (b) are independent and do not imply each
other, but they can easily coexist in your example.
Best regards
Pier Marco

Il giorno mar 16 giu 2026 alle ore 19:17 Wiemer, Bjoern via Lingtyp <
lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> ha scritto:

> Dear All,
>
> do you know of languages in which a construction that evolved past
> prospective, avertive or even future-in-the-past meanings, concomitantly
> developed reportive uses?
>
> In Polish, the construction *mieć* ‘have’.PST + INF shows parallel
> development in both directions, and these meanings can even overlap (or be
> combined) in the same utterances. Here are two examples from the Polish
> National Corpus (the English translations are the best I can think of,
> although they don’t convey this “dualism” faithfully):
>
>
>
> (1)          Brygida umartwiała się, parząc się gorącym woskiem w
> miejscach, gdzie Chrystus miał rany. Przepowiedziała też koniec świata. *Miał
> nastąpić* w 1999 roku.
>
> ‘Brygida practised self-mortification by burning herself with hot wax in
> the places where Christ had been wounded. She also prophesied the end of
> the world. It *was to take place* in 1999.’
>
>    - reportive + past prospective or future-in-the-past (depending on
>    one’s definition of the latter)
>
>
>
> (2)          Panie Ministrze, w poprzedniej kadencji dokonano zmian w
> strukturze na najniższych na najniższych szczeblach: zlikwidowano
> posterunki w gminach. To *miało poprawić* stan bezpieczeństwa
> publicznego. A ja doświadczam tego, że został pogorszony stan
> bezpieczeństwa publicznego.
>
> ‘Minister, during the previous parliamentary term, changes were made to
> the structure at the very lowest levels: police stations in local
> authorities were closed down. This *was to improve* public safety. Yet my
> experience is that public safety has actually deteriorated.’
>
>                >            reportive + avertive (i.e. prospective with
> contradiction to promise in the last sentence)
>
>
>
> There are other languages in which a future-in-the-past meaning, or
> related meanings, have developed from a construction with a deontic modal,
> or a desiderative verb, in the past (‘had to, should’, ‘want’) and an
> infinitive (or an equivalent form of a lexical verb). Often these
> constructions appear as conditionals (or are dubbed as such), as, e.g., for
> Balkan Slavic and Romance languages. However, in these languages no
> reportive meaning evolved out of the same construction.
>
>                Conversely, there might be languages which have developed
> (or were on the way of developing) a reportive meaning out of such a
> construction, but not a future-in-the-past meaning.
>
> The history of German seems to provide a case similar to the Polish one,
> but the development stopped short. In earlier stages of High German we find
> *sollten* ‘should’ as a kind of future-in-the-past, and it even seems to
> have occasionally been attested in reportive use, but the latter use has
> disappeared, while the future-in-the-past meaning has persisted (although
> it might have been marginalized by its “rival” *würde* + INF). This is
> complementary to the fate of *sollen*, the present tense equivalent of
> *sollten*: *sollen* + INF can be used as a reportive construction (apart
> from deontic use), but it has not established as a future auxiliary
> (although there might have been pre-stages into that direction).
>
>
>
> One thus gets the impression that, at least in Europe, Polish is unique
> for its parallel development of both future-in-the-past and reportive uses
> (from the *same* construction). Both uses have existed at least since the
> 17th century and are well attested in the contemporary language. However,
> I doubt whether Polish is the only known case from a broader typological
> point of view.
>
>                I’d appreciate any information on comparable cases in other
> languages, from different continents (and at different periods).
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