The development of future time expressions in Late Modern English: redistribution of forms or change in discourse?

Abstract

This article provides the first comprehensive analysis of the development of the future time expressions will, 'll, shall, be going to, progressive with future time reference, and be to in the course of the late modern period. The article focuses on possible reasons for the considerable changes that have taken place in the past few centuries. To what degree can the changes be described as certain forms having been (partially) replaced by others? To what degree have general or register-specific changes in discourse affected the use of future time expressions? These questions are investigated on the basis of the British part of ARCHER (A Representative Corpus of Historical English Registers).The analysis reveals that it is a complex interaction of both types of processes that is responsible for the recent evolution of future time expressions. Redistribution processes turn out to be highly complex in themselves, going far beyond the frequently described replacement of shall by will and probably proceeding in chains. With respect to discourse change, one result is an unexpected overall decrease in the tendency of writers (and speakers) to refer to their own plans, intentions, etc. Partly responsible for this development is a discourse change in science writing, where the author has increasingly disappeared from the text, so that text structure is much less frequently expressed in terms of the author's intention. A further register-specific discourse change that the investigation brings to light is a development in diaries from an earlier restriction to reporting past events to the expression of more personal views, including hopes and fears for the future.

The Demise of the Being to V Construction

“…Previous studies have looked at the being to V construction in terms of changes affecting the system of auxiliaries in English and linked its demise to constructions that are not contestants for the marginal modal. I will add to the discussion by looking at the role that the marginal modal plays as part of the inventory of Future Time Expressions (FTEs; Nesselhauf ) and as an alternative for semi‐modal have to in its non‐finite form. From a structural point of view, the question is whether the competing constructions are truly equivalent, i.e., whether they are competing for the same linguistic environment (Lass : 140).…”

“…Nesselhauf (; ) investigated the role of be to as a FTE in ARCHER‐3.1. Her studies show that finite be to is a low‐frequency option in the inventory of FTEs throughout the LModE period.…”

“…Her studies show that finite be to is a low‐frequency option in the inventory of FTEs throughout the LModE period. It decreases (especially in terms of relative frequency) against other FTEs at the end of the nineteenth century (Nesselhauf : 170). While finite be to is already a low‐frequency FTE, this holds even more so for non‐finite being to V .…”

The rise of the going to future in Tyneside English

“…Sentence type has also been shown in some studies to play an important role in the distribution of be going to versus will. Nesselhauf's (2010) diachronic study of the British section of the ARCHER corpus reveals that will declines over time in negative contexts whereas be going to increases. By contrast, Szmrecsanyi's (2003) results from the BNC demonstrate that negative contexts prefer will.…”

“…More recent findings on the complex interaction of future markers in LME have been provided by Nesselhauf (2010).…”