6.312 Sum: Progressive with future time reference
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LINGUIST List: Vol-6-312. Tue 28 Feb 1995. ISSN: 1068-4875. Lines: 253
Subject: 6.312 Sum: Progressive with future time reference
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1)
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 20:18:36 -0400
From: bertinet at sns.it (Bertinetto
Subject: Sum: again on the progressive with future time reference
-------------------------Messages--------------------------------------
1)
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 20:18:36 -0400
From: bertinet at sns.it (Bertinetto
Subject: Sum: again on the progressive with future time reference
Since I posted my previous summary, I received a number of new messages,
which enable me to provide more information.
Let me first recall the PROBLEM.
I was interested in getting informations about languages where the
progressive may be used with future time reference. Thus, what I am
interested in is not the fact that the present tense may have future time
reference, for this is probably a universal feature, but rather the fact
that the present progressive may appear in contexts such as:
- I am leaving tomorrow
For comparison, consider Italian. You may of course say:
- Parto domani 'I leave tomorrow' (present tense
but the following sounds horrible:
- * Sto partendo domani (present progressive.
I must have been unclear about this. As a consequence, a couple of people
sent messages which were not really in focus. Let me however thank them
very warmly (although anonymously for their kindness. Thanks, of course,
also to the people listed below.
Here follow the (relevant messages I got. I limited my editing to the bare
minimum.
=============================================================================
John Saeed,
Centre for Language & Communication Studies,
Trinity College, Dublin
jsaeed at mail.tcd.ie
The Cushitic language Somali has exactly the pattern of your English example:
a progressive verb form used with a future time adverbial to mean future, e.g.
waan tegayaa berrito
waa+aan tegayaa berrito
CLASSIFIER+I am-going tomorrow
'I am going tomorrow'
berrito ayaan tegayaa
berrito ayaa+aan tegayaa
tomorrow FOCUS+I am-going
'I am going TOMORROW'
The first example is without nominal focus, the second focuses the nominal
adverbial *berrito* 'tomorrow'. The progressive in Standard Somali is
formed historically from a fusion of a main verb infinitive form and an
auxiliary verb *hay* to have, e.g. tegi hayaa -- tegayaa. It is used both
as a true progressive and, as in English, very commonly and regularly for
future, especially proximate future. Having said that, it can be used with
adverbials for further future,'next year' etc., when there is some element
of planning maybe. Its true usage has not yet been adequately described but
it looks very like the English usage.
(You could find more details in Saeed, John I. Somali Reference Grammar.
(Second revised edition Kensington, Maryland: Dunwoody Press, 1993.
=============================================================================
John Peterson, Kiel, Germany email: gor05 at rz.uni-kiel.d400.de
Nepali also has a present (and past progressive form. The present form can
also be used to indicate future action. Here're a few examples from a very
handy introduction to Nepali:
David Matthews, A Course in Nepali. Second edition. London:School of
Oriental and African Studies, 1992.
page 63:
'A Present Continuous Tense (corresponding to the English 'I am doing' is
formed with the Imperfect Participle in -day followed by the auxiliary verb
cha' ... 'This tense ... is frequently used in colloquial speech. Like the
Simple Indefinite Tense, it may also be used with reference to future time.
' An example from the same page: 'What are you doing? I am working.' On the
next page: 'Next Thursday he is coming to my house.' These examples are all
formed with the present continuous tense, however, if you would like to
quote it or read it yourself, you need to be able to read the script or
have someone there who can help you. But, just for your information,
in Nepali the present continuous tense - but also the simple (indefinite
present tense - can both be used to express future action (in addition to a
future tense.
=============================================================================
Ernest McCarus
Ernest.McCarus at um.cc.umich.edu
Modern Standard (Literary Arabic has participles which may be used in
progressive constructions, as in
huwa musaafirun 'ilaa bayruuta
he traveling to Beirut
'He is traveling to Beirut.'
This same sentence with future time modifiers can have future time reference:
huwa musaafirun 'ilaa bayruuta ghadan.
'He is traveling to Beirut tomorrow.'
There is a semantic constraint on the future meaning, however: only verbs
of motion (those denoting a change of locale, including the zero case of
same ["to remain"] may normally have this future meaning. This excludes
statives, acts and activities. Further, these motion verb active participles
may also have perfective state meaning ("having traveled", again depending
on the context. Thus the example above may be translated "He is traveling",
"he will be traveling" or "he will depart"; or "he has departed, he is gone".
This seems to be the case for the dialectal forms of Arabic as well, although
they have not all been studied yet.
=============================================================================
Kirk Belnap
4062 JKHB
Brigham Young University
Provo, Utah 84602
(801 378-6531
belnapk at yvax.byu.edu
I thought you ought to know about Arabic. Many varieties of Arabic
allow a rather similar construction. For example, Cairene Arabic:
'inti misafra bukra
you(f.sg. traveling(f.sg. tomorrow
"Are you (f.sg. coming tomorrow?"
misafra (m.sg. misaafir; pl. misafriin is the active participle. This
construction may parallel the development of the English construction.
=============================================================================
Maik Gibson
llrgbson at reading.ac.uk
Tunisian arabic is slightly complex in that it has 3 ways to form the
progressive, depending on the verb. With verbs of motion and state, the
present participle is used (Arabic is copula-drop, so there is no auxilairy
ana ma:shi
I going
in fact, it is also pro-drop, so the pronoun is not compulsory.
This form of the progresive can also be used for future reference (as can
inflected imperfective/present verbs.
ghudwa ma:shi l-is-su:q?
tomorrow going to-the-market
"Are you going to the market tomorrow?"
My intuitions (unchecked tell me that other verbs in the progressive
cannot be used this way
=============================================================================
Jacques Arends
ARENDS at ALF.LET.UVA.NL
Sranan (one of the Suriname English-lexifier creoles uses the durative marker
e to express future (it also has two future markers sa and o:
mi e skrifi a brifi (I'm writing the letter
mi e skrifi a brifi tamara (I'l write the letter tomorrow.
I wouldn't be surprised if this is possible in some other creoles as well.
I should note that I'm not a native speaker, and that my knowledge of the
language is largely restricted to earlier stages of its historical development.
For further information, you may want to consult the recently published grammar
of Ndjuka (one of Sranan's sister languages by Huttar & Huttar (Routledge,
1994, or 95.
=============================================================================
Aleksander Murzaku
Microlytics, Inc.
Two Tobey Village Office Park -- Pittsford, New York 14534
Tel. 716 248 9150 Ext. 118 Fax. 716 248 3868
E-mail: amurzaku at microlytics.com
Albanian seems to have the same features. The progressive is formed, for both
present and imperfect past, by putting a particle [po] in front of the verb.
The particle is the same for all the forms of the verb.
1. How the progressive is created:
("po" is equivalent to the suffix "-ing" in English
a ai po ecte
[he -ing walk(past imperfect]
b ne po ecim
[we -ing walk(present]
2. Not every verb can be combined with a future time adverbial (this depends
on the semantic features of the verb and on the tense - only present
a po vi neser
[-ing come(1st person sg tomorrow]
b po shkojme pas nje ore
[-ing go(1st person pl in one hour]
=============================================================================
Mari Siiroinen
Graduate Student
Dept of Finnish Language
Univ of Helsinki
SIIROINEN at cc.Helsinki.FI
Do you know the article Back to the Future by Bybee, Pagliuca and Perkins in
Elizabeth Closs Traugott & Bernd Heine 1991 Approaches to Grammaticalization
II. Benjamins: Amsterdam? The article deals with future and especially how it
has developed in languages. According to the article there are some number of
languages that have progressives with future meanings or futures that used to
be progressives.
Finnish is not one of the languages they investigated. I can tell you as a
speaker of Finnish and a linguist that there are two constructions in Finnish
that are progressive and future.
1. ole+n voitta+va 'I shall win'
Consists of the verb olla 'be' in present tense and in personal inflection and
the main verb in present participle. The meaning of this construction is purely
future, but it used to be progressive. It is said to be similar in construction
to Latin's "facturus est". It is not used in modern Finnish any more, it's
biblical language. Probably a loan from Swedish.
2. ole+n voitta+ma+ssa 'I am winning, I shall win'
Consists of the verb be and so called 3. infinitive (ma + inessive ending
(ssa. I just heard yesterday in the news: 'Koulujen hiihtolomat
ovat alkamassa huomenna' 'The school ski-holidays are beginning tomorrow'.
The verbs in the construction olla + 3rd infinitive inessive that get future
reading seem to be verbs with meaning of a sudden change, achievement verbs.
E.g. lo"yta"a" 'find', alkaa 'begin, start', loppua 'end', ra"ja"hta"a"
'explode'. As a matter of fact verbs of this type get 'is about to' meaning,
called inceptual in the literature I found.
Pommi on ra"ja"hta"ma"ssa". 'The bomb is about to explode'
But sentence: Sosiaalidemokraatit ovat saamassa lisa"paikkoja eduskuntaan.
'The socialdemocrats will get more places (seats in the parliament' is not
inceptual. It is more truly future. I can't say which verbs get this reading.
=============================================================================
MY COMMENT: the inceptive meaning attached to achievement verbs is a
frequently observed feature. But I was not aware of these usages in
Finnish, which had not been described before.
Note also that Mari Siiroinen called my attention to a paper by Bybee,
Perkins and Pagliuca ("Back to the Future". I believe this is now a
chapter of their book "The evolution of grammar" (Un. of Chicago P.
Thanks again to everybody. If you have additional information, please send
it to me, and I shall summarize. I hope the real target is now clear
enough.
PM
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