scholarly journals Ambiguity of Future in the Past in the Modern English Language

Author(s):  
Olga Nikolaevna Selezneva

The article raises the question of ambiguity of Future in the Past in expressing the future tense in the modern English language. The author of the article analyzes should/would + infinitive, its grammatical status and the expressed lexical meaning. The article notes that ambiguity of Future in the Past is mainly due to the homonymy of should/would + infinitive forms with the forms of the subjunctive mood. However, Future in the Past is a part of the verb system of tenses in the modern English language and it expresses assumption, intention or obligation to perform a future action from the past position.

Author(s):  
Olga Nikolaevna Selezneva

The article raises the question of the ambiguous grammatical status of the means expressing the future tense. The author of the article analyzes the Future Continuous form, its grammatical status and expressed lexical meaning. The article assumes that unlike other continual forms of the English verb tenses system, the main meaning of which is the expression of an action’s duration or a process, the main function of Future Continuous is to designate neutral future actions.


Kavkaz-forum ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Э.Б. САТЦАЕВ

Время – грамматическая категория глагола, служит временной состояния, либо события. В различных языках наличествует соответствующее количество временных форм. Индоевропейский глагол в историческом плане имел три временные системы – презенс, аорист и перфект. В Авесте засвидетельствованы формы всех индоевропейских времен, наклонений и залогов. В ней в изъявительном наклонении раз­личаются следующие времена: настоящее время, имперфект, перфект и плюсквамперфект. В презенсе авестийского глагола выделяются два типа основ. Эти основы делятся на классы, количество которых доходит до двадцати двух. Глагольная система, которая наличествует в среднеиранских языках, значительно изменилась по сравнению с древнеиранскими языками. Однако древнеиранская временная система практически во всех иранских языках данного периода сохранилась. В новоперсидском языке насчитывается восемь времен. Идентичное количество временных форм можно наблюдать также в афганском языке, представленном в восточноиранской языковой подгруппе. Среди иранских языков осетинский характеризуется скудостью временных форм. В осетинском языке можно выделить три глагольные основы, от которых образуются формы соответствующих времен. В осетинских глаголах обнаруживаются следы древнеарийских классов настоящего времени. В современных иранских языках основное противоположение лежит между прошлым и не прошлыми временами. В изъявительном наклонении осетинский язык знает три времени: настоящее, прошедшее и будущее. Наиболее интересным явлением в осетинском языке является образование будущего времени, аналогичная с осетинским языком модель образования будущего времени наблюдаются в согдийском и хорезмийском языках, ко­торые считаются наиболее близкими к осетинскому языку. Tense is a grammatical category of a verb that serves as a temporary localization of an event or state. Different languages have a different number of temporary forms. Historically, the Indo-European verb had three temporal systems – present, aorist and perfect. In the Avesta, forms of all Indo-European times, moods and pledges are attested. The following tenses are distinguished in it in the indicative mood: present, imperfect, perfect and pluperfect. There are two types of stems in the presence of the Avestan verb. These basics are divided into classes, the number of which reaches twenty-two. The verb system in the Middle Iranian languages has changed significantly compared to the ancient Iranian, however, the ancient Iranian temporal system in almost all Iranian languages of this period has been preserved. There are eight tenses in the New Persian language. Almost the same number of temporal forms is observed in Afghan, which is part of the Eastern Iranian subgroup. Among the Iranian languages, Ossetian is a scarcity of temporary forms. In the Ossetian language, three verbal stems can be distinguished, from which the forms of the corresponding tenses are formed. In Ossetian verbs, traces of the ancient Aryan classes of the present tense are found. In modern Iranian languages, the main opposition lies between the past and non-past times. In the indicative mood, the Ossetian language knows three tenses: present, past and future. The most interesting phenomenon in the Ossetian language is the formation of the future tense, a model of the formation of the future tense similar to the Ossetian language is observed in the Sogdian and Khorezm languages, which are considered the closest to the Ossetian language.


SLEEP ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. A40-A40
Author(s):  
J Diaz ◽  
P Fillmore ◽  
C Gao ◽  
M K Scullin

Abstract Introduction In young adults, sleep spindles are theorized to represent memory consolidation. Spindle density may be especially prominent when young adults encode information that has future relevance. Older adults, on the other hand, show reduced capacity for future thinking and deficits in sleep-dependent memory consolidation. To advance these literatures, we investigated whether the process of mentally simulating the future (versus remembering the past) was associated with subsequent alterations to sleep microarchitecture in young and older adults. Methods 64 healthy adults aged 18–84 completed a polysomnography adaptation night followed by two in-laboratory experimental nights. On both nights, participants completed the Modified Future Crovitz Test (MFCT) in which they mentally simulated only future events or remembered only past events (night order counterbalanced). To quantify the extent of future/past thinking, we conducted linguistics analyses on tense (future/past) using LIWC 2015 software. Results On the future-thinking night, young adults with greater future-tense MFCT scores showed significantly greater spindle density across frontal, midline, and central sites (r=.42 to r=.51), even when controlling for age, gender, and total word count (all ps < .01). The opposite was true for middle-to-older aged adults; greater future-tense MFCT scores were associated with less spindle density across midline and central sites after controlling for age, gender, and word count (r=-.44 to r=-.46, ps<.05). However, while spindle density decreased, frontal slow oscillations increased in older adults with greater future-tense MFCT scores (r=.39, p<.05). On the past-thinking night, spindle density and slow oscillations were unrelated to past-tense or future-tense MFCT scores for either age group. Conclusion Age-related deficits in memory consolidation may be due to impaired tagging of information as having future relevance, or impaired physiological responses during sleep to wake-based tagging. Addressing encoding—spindle interactions may inform why cognitive functioning declines in some adults more than others. Support Sleep Research Society Foundation


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 156
Author(s):  
Saadat Nuriyeva

<p>Belonging to different language families, the English and Azerbaijani languages differ in all the aspects (grammar, phonetics and lexis) of the language. Therefore, as non-native speakers, Azerbaijanis have many difficulties in learning English. Many scholars try to eliminate those difficulties by comparing and analyzing the languages, finding out the similarities and differences between the languages compared. One of the main problems for Azerbaijani learners of English is learning the ways of expressing futurity in English to be able to select proper means of expression while translating from English into Azerbaijani and vice versa. The development of linguistics in the last few decades has been so quick and manifold that a new insight has been implemented concerning the current problems. It gave rise to the development of the comparative typological investigation of non-kindred languages. We shall try to investigate future tense in English basing upon quantitative typology that investigates this or that phenomena existing in two compared languages. The aim of our investigation is to show the grammatical ways of expressing the future in contemporary English, reveal similarities and differences between the ways of expressing future in English and Azerbaijan and, consequently, provide corresponding forms in Azerbaijani. As English is much richer in the ways of expressing future action than Azerbaijani, we will analyze and provide all the possible ways of conveying them in Azerbaijani. There are many controversial and quarrel some points concerning the future tense problem in English and Azerbaijani. The article highlights these problems by providing prominent linguists’ theoretical points of view as well as the author’s own analysis and approach to the stated problems.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
М. В. Ермолова ◽  

There are two pluperfect forms in Pskov dialects: “to be (past tense) + vši-form” and “to be (past tense) +l-form”. The first one has a resultative meaning and should be considered in the row of other perfective forms with the verb to be in the present tense, future tense and in the form of subjunctive mood. The second one has a meaning of discontinuous past. Apparently, it is a grammeme of the past tense and it is opposed to the “simple” past tense by the meaning of the irrelevance of the action to the present. There are similar systems with two pluperfect forms in other Slavic and non-Slavic languages.


2021 ◽  
Vol 137 (2) ◽  
pp. 383-425
Author(s):  
Cristina Sánchez López

Abstract In this paper, three cases of grammatical variation in Spanish are studied in which a subjunctive verb alternates with another verbal mood in a main clause: optative main sentences with a bare subjunctive verb (alternating with optative main sentences introduced by a conjunction or an adverb); declarative and interrogative sentences with a subjunctive verb (alternating with a conditional verb); and «retrospective imperative» sentences (where the subjunctive mood alternates with a perfect infinitive). It is proposed that, in the varieties where these main clauses with a subjunctive verb are possible, the subjunctive mood has a performative value and satisfies the illocutionary properties in Force associated with sentential modality. The performative value of subjunctive is associated with an irrealis modal base, which is provided by the lexical meaning of a modal verb or by the past perfect temporal anchoring of tense. The proposal shows that the same conditions constraint the three constructions under study and explains the coincidence between the varieties that allow the performative subjunctive (or use it more frequently).


Author(s):  
Anna Kupść ◽  
Jesse Tseng

This paper presents an analysis of constructions involving the l-form of the verb in Polish, including primarily the past tense, the conditional mood, and the future tense. Previous approaches have attempted to treat these uniformly as auxiliary verb constructions. We argue against a unified treatment, however, in light of synchronic and diachronic evidence that indicates that only the future tense and the conditional still involve auxiliaries in modern Polish. We show that the past tense is now a simple tense, although the l-forms appear in combination with agreement affixes that can appear in different places in the sentence. We provide an account of the common linearization properties of the past tense markings and the conditional auxiliary. We present a detailed HPSG analysis of the past tense construction that relies on the introduction of two interacting agreement features. We then discuss the consequences of our proposals for the analysis of the conditional and future auxiliary constructions, and finally, we offer a treatment of constructions involving inflected complementizers in Polish.


1999 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shana Poplack ◽  
Sali Tagliamonte

Focusing on the process of grammaticization, whereby items with lexical meaning evolve into grammatical markers, this article examines the future temporal reference sectors of three diaspora varieties of African American English which have evolved in linguistic isolates and compares them with those of British-origin rural and mainstream varieties of English. With one exception, the same constraint hierarchies condition the selection of going to across the board, indicating that their future temporal reference systems are descended from a common source. All other distinctions among the varieties result from their differential positioning on the cline of ongoing grammaticization of going to as a future marker. Operationalization of constraints representing different stages of the development of going to and comparison of their probability values across communities confirm that the enclave and the rural varieties retain conservative traits, visible here in the form of variable conditioning, in contrast to mainstream English, which is innovating. We suggest that the major determinant of variability in the expression of the future is the fact that the speech of isolated speakers, whether of African or British origin, instantiates constraints that were operative at an earlier stage of the English language and that are now receding from mainstream varieties.


2018 ◽  
pp. 281-301
Author(s):  
L.M. Singhvi

Indian society retains its vitality and is keen to comprehend and nurture its identity for identity finds its anchors in time and space and Indology is the key to our identity in time and space. He asserts that there is no reason to believe that Indian antiquity will be pushed into oblivion or be discarded and cast away for the past lasts much longer than the time in which it was and the time in which we reflect upon it. Nor is Indology entirely of the past. It is also the past as we perceive it and therefore it is the past in the present and future tense, and today is the yesterday of tomorrow and tomorrow is the yesterday of day after.


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