Grammatical synonymy with constructions expressing future time in English and Romanian
Grammatical synonymy with constructions expressing future time in English and Romanian

Summary/Abstract: An important source of grammatical synonymy is represented by the various ways of expressing future time. Simple present, present continuous, future tense as well as other constructions can be used to express future time. Modal verbs such as ―May /might‖ and other volitional verbs such as ―hope‖, ―intend‖, or constructions as ―be sure to‖, ―be bound to‖ have all future reference, so there is no difference in meaning between utterances like ―The weather may improve.‖ and ―I hope the weather improves.‖ The fact that there seems to be no change in meaning between such constructions as ―to be about to‖ and ―to be on the point of‖ or ―be going to‖ in utterances such as ―They are about to leave‖, ―They are on the point of leaving‖ and ―They are just going to leave‖ makes linguists speak about equivalence of meaning. However, the difference is the grammatical regimen of the constructions as well as the different nuances of meaning suggested. Considering that synonymy implies both a degree of similarity as well as difference between synonymous terms, the present paper will give a brief account of the similarities and differences between the constructions having future time reference both in English and Romanian. The matter of grammatical synonymy will be further applied to the translation process with a view to show that there is both contrast and similarity between language systems.

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