THE FUTURE: BETWEEN MOOD/ MODALITY AND TENSE
THE FUTURE: BETWEEN MOOD/ MODALITY AND TENSE
Author(s): Cristina CorcheşSubject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai
Keywords: tense; mood; modality; futurity; semantic shift; cycle; evolution; recast; volition; obligation; presumptive; analytic/ synthetic forms; agglutination.
Summary/Abstract: This paper aims to illustrate that future-forms are partly temporal and partly modal because they evolve out of modals which at some point take on a temporal value. Diachronic evidence from Latin and Romance proves that almost all future-forms undergo the next evolution cycle: they arise from future-oriented modalities (volition, obligation etc.), they grammaticalize as future-paradigms, they become to `abstruse for the speaker to conceptualize` and then they acquire new modal coloration. Western Romance languages are approaching the end of the last stage of this cycle, while Romanian has already completed it and now it is undergoing a second one.
Journal: Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai - Philologia
- Issue Year: 55/2010
- Issue No: 4
- Page Range: 195-205
- Page Count: 11
- Language: English