In grammar, a future tense (abbreviated ) is a verb form that generally marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future. An example of a future tense form is the French achètera, meaning "will buy", derived from the verb acheter ("to buy"). The "future" expressed by the future tense usually means the future relative to the moment of speaking, although in contexts where relative tense is used it may mean the future relative to some other point in time under consideration.
English does not have an inflectional future tense, though it has a variety of grammatical and lexical means for expressing future-related meanings. These include modal auxiliaries such as will and shall as well as the futurate present tense.
Tenseless languages use context, lexical items, aspect and/or mood to indicate time.
Expressions The nature of the future, necessarily uncertain and at varying distances ahead, means that the speaker may refer to future events with the modality either of probability (what the speaker expects to happen) or intent (what the speaker plans to make happen).Östen Dahl, Tense and Aspect Systems, Blackwell, 1985, pp. 105–106. Whether future expression is realis or irrealis depends not so much on an objective ontological notion of future reality, but rather on the degree of the speaker's conviction that the event will in fact come about.
In many languages there is no grammatical (morphological or syntactic) indication of future tense. Future meaning is supplied by the context, with the use of temporal adverbs such as "later", "next year", etc. Such adverbs (in particular words meaning "tomorrow" and "then") sometimes develop into grammaticalized future tense markers. (A tense used to refer specifically to occurrences taking place on the following day is called a crastinal tense.)
In other languages, mostly of European origin, specific markers indicate futurity. These structures constitute a future tense. In many cases, an auxiliary verb is used, as in English, where futurity is often indicated by the modal auxiliary will (or shall). However, some languages combine such an auxiliary with the main verb to produce a simple (one-word, morphological) future tense. This is the origin of the future tense in Western Romance languages such as French and Italian (see below).
A given language may have more than one way to express futurity. English, for example, often refers to future events using present tense forms or other structures such as the going-to future, besides the canonical form with will/shall. In addition, the verb forms used for the future tense can also be used to express other types of meaning; English again provides examples of this (see English modal verbs for the various meanings that both will and shall can have besides simply expressing futurity).
Germanic languages In Germanic languages, including English, a common expression of the future is using the present tense, with the futurity expressed using words that imply future action (I go to Berlin tomorrow or I am going to Berlin tomorrow). There is no simple (morphological) future tense as such. However, the future can also be expressed by employing an auxiliary construction that combines certain present tense auxiliary verbs with the simple infinitive (stem) of the main verb. These auxiliary forms vary between the languages. Other, generally more informal, expressions of futurity use an auxiliary with the compound infinitive of the main verb (as with the English is going to ...).
English English grammar provides a number of ways to indicate the future nature of an occurrence. Some argue that English, like most Germanic languages, does not have a future tense—that is, a grammatical form that always indicates futurity—nor does it have a mandatory form for the expression of futurity. However, through gradual development from its Germanic roots, English became what is now considered a strongly future-tense-marking language. Currently, there are several generally accepted ways to indicate futurity in English, and some of them—particularly those that use will or shall as the most universal and widely used—are frequently described as future tense while some may argue these verbs serve both as present modal verbs and future tense markers.
The will/shall future consists of the modal verb will or shall together with the bare infinitive of the main verb, as in "He will win" or "I shall win". (Prescriptive grammarians prefer will in the second and third persons and shall in the first person, reversing the forms to express obligation or determination, but in practice shall and will are generally used interchangeably,Usage notes on "shall" in New Oxford Dictionary of English, 1999 Oxford University Press with will being more common. For details see shall and will.) The meaning of this construction is close to that expressed by the future tense in other languages. However the same construction with will or shall can have other meanings that do not indicate futurity, or else indicate some modality in addition to futurity (as in "He will make rude remarks," in the sense of "He is wont to make rude remarks," meaning he has a habit of doing so; or, "You shall stop making rude remarks," which is giving an order). For details of these meanings, see the sections on will and shall in the article on English modal verbs.
The form of the will/shall future described above is frequently called the simple future (or future simple). Other constructions provide additional auxiliaries that express particular aspects: the future progressive (or future continuous) as in "He will be working"; the future perfect as in "They will have finished"; and the future perfect progressive as in "You will have been practising." For detail on these, see the relevant sections of Uses of English verb forms. (For more on expressions of relative tense, such as the future perfect, see also the section above.)
Several other English constructions commonly refer to the future: Futurate present tense forms, as in "The trains leave at five" (meaning "The trains will leave at five"), or "My cousins arrive tomorrow" (meaning "My cousins will arrive tomorrow"). Since these grammatical forms are used more canonically to refer to present situations, they are not generally described as future tense; in sentences like those just given they may be described as "present tense with future meaning". Use of the present tense (rather than forms with will) is mandatory in some subordinate clauses referring to the future, such as "If I feel better next week, ..." and "As soon as they arrive, ...". For more details see the sections on the simple present, present progressive and dependent clauses in the article on English verb forms. The going-to future, e.g., "John is going to leave tonight." The construction with a finite form of the copula verb be together with the to-infinitive, e.g., "John is to leave tonight". (With the zero copula of newspaper headline style, this becomes simply "John to leave tonight".) For details see am to. The construction with to be about to, e.g., "John is about to leave", referring to the expected immediate future. (A number of lexical expressions with similar meaning also exist, such as to be on the point of (doing something).) Use of modal verbs with future meaning, to combine the expression of future time with certain modality: "I must do this" (also mun in Northern English dialect); "We should help him"; "I can get out of here"; "We may win"; "You might succeed". The same modal verbs are also often used with present rather than future reference. For details of their meanings and usage, see English modal verbs.
Questions and negatives are formed from all of the above constructions in the regular manner: see Questions and Negation in the English grammar article. The auxiliaries will and shall form the contracted negations won't and shan't (they can also sometimes be contracted when not negated, to 'll, such as in I'll find it).
The various ways of expressing the future carry different meanings, implying not just futurity but also aspect (the way an action or state takes place in time) and/or modality (the attitude of the speaker toward the action or state).Fleischman, Suzanne, The Future in Thought and Language, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1982: pp. 18–19, 86–89, and 95–97.Comrie, Bernard, Tense, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1985: pp. 21, 47–48. The precise interpretation must be based on the context. In particular there is sometimes a distinction in usage between the will/shall future and the going-to future (although in some contexts they are interchangeable). For more information see the going-to future article.
Dutch Dutch can express the future in three ways: gaan + infinitive: Ik ga het boek lezen (I'm going to read the book). "Gaan" is a cognate of "to go". zullen + infinitive: Ik zal het boek lezen (I will/shall read the book). "Zullen" is a cognate of "shall". present tense + context or a temporal adverb or clause: Hoe lang blijft hij in Nederland? (How long is he staying in the Netherlands?) Its English-language equivalent uses the continuous or imperfective aspect. Zullen + infinitive is more similar to shall than to will. It is used to: express a promise or a proposal emphasize that something will certainly happen express that an event is likely going to take place (by explicitly mentioning the probability) English will and Dutch wil, although cognates, have over the centuries shifted in meaning, such that will is almost identical to shall, whereas Dutch wil means want, as in Ik wil het doen (I want to do it).
Gaan + infinitive can be compared with the English "going to" . It is used: to express an intended action (but not a promise, proposal, or solemn plan) to say that an event is going to take place (without emphasizing the certainty or mentioning the probability)
Swedish
Swedish skall strongly implies intention, but with an adverb such as nog "probably" it can avoid the implication of intentionality: Det här skall nog gå bra "This will probably go well". However, the past tense of skall, skulle, can be used without such an adverb to express predictions in the past: Pelle sa, att det skulle bli varmt på eftermiddagen "Pelle said that it would be warm in the afternoon."
Pure future, regardless of intention, is usually expressed with kommer att (literally: "comes to"): Det här kommer att gå bra "This will go well", Du kommer att överleva det här "You will survive this".
Generally, future tense is sparsely used in spoken Swedish, with the verb instead being put in present tense and accompanied by a distinct time specification: Jag åker till Spanien på fredag "I travel to Spain on Friday" Då ses vi imorgon. "Then we meet tomorrow"
Latin and Romance The future tense forms in Latin varied by conjugation. Here is a sample of the future tense for the first conjugation verb amare, "to love". amabo I shall love amabis you (singular) will love amabit he, she, it will love amabimus we shall love amabitis you (plural) will love amabunt they will love