It appears obvious that everything happening before the present moment belongs to the past and all events following now refer to the future. Additionally, Quirk points out that there is no morphological future form in English. While, for example,-edis added to regular verbs in order to form the Simple Past and-sis added in order to form the 3rdperson singular in the Simple Present Tense, there is no such rule for the future time in English. Consequently, future time is not formed by verb inflection. Therefore, according to Quirk there is no future tense in English. However, linguists and teachers argue about this problem and thus two main views can be distinguished (Quirk 1985:176):
a) As already mentioned tense can only be achieved by verb inflection. Hence, English has no future tense.
b) A future reference can be achieved by using an auxiliary verb construction, such aswill+ infinitive, for example. It appears evident that despite the fact that English has no future tense, it must be capable of expressing future time, namely by the use of auxiliaries.
According to Quirk (1985:120)auxiliariescan be divided into primary verbs (be,have, do)or modal verbs (can,may, will, shall, could, might, would, should, must).The latter category is also calledmodal auxiliaries.As it was already indicated above, modal auxiliaries, especiallywillandshall, play an important role in terms of future time in English. For that reason, this term paper deals with an analysis of the modal auxiliarieswillandshalland their future time reference. This analysis is based on the Chemnitz Translation Corpus of the Chemnitz Internet Grammar.1Barnbrook (1996:168) defines acorpusas “a collection of texts, selected to represent a particular type of language and held incomputer-readableform”. The Chemnitz Translation Corpus consists of four main types of texts:policy documents, academic writing, tourist brochuresand ofpolitical and public speeches.All example sentences for the analysis ofwillandshallwhich appear in this paper were taken from this corpus and by that, from the above-mentioned types of text.2By analysing a lot of example sentences with different contexts, i. e. for example biblical, political or tourist backgrounds, the aim of this paper is to find hypotheses for future or non-future uses ofwillandshalland by that, to develop grammar rules.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. An Analysis of WILL
2.1 Overview
2.1 WILL in the Chemnitz Translation Corpus (CTC)
2.2.1 WILL - Werden/Wird
2.2.2 WILL - Wollen/Will
3. An Analysis of SHALL
3.1 Overview
3.2 SHALL in the Chemnitz Translation Corpus
3.2.1 SHALL – Werden
3.2.2 SHALL – Sollen
4. Conclusion
5. Bibliography
Research Objectives and Themes
This paper examines the usage and future time reference of the modal auxiliaries "will" and "shall" in English, specifically analyzing data from the Chemnitz Translation Corpus to determine their predictive and volitional functions.
- Analysis of future time reference without morphological future tense
- Empirical investigation using the Chemnitz Translation Corpus (CTC)
- Differentiation between predictive (extrinsic) and volitional (intrinsic) meanings
- Comparison of formal constraints and personal pronoun usage
- Pragmatic functions of "will" and "shall" in requests, offers, and questions
Excerpt from the Book
2.2.2 WILL - Wollen/Will
The next step of the discovery procedure is to look at meanings of will that differ from its predictive meaning. The second most common translation of will is the German term wollen. The English term will and the German equivalent wollen seem to be ‘false friends’ at first sight because, usually, wollen is translated as want to. At least this is what learners of English are taught.
However, assuming that the examples in the Chemnitz Translation Corpus have been translated by professional translators there must be a second meaning of the modal auxiliary will that can be translated with the German lexeme wollen. Before exploring this topic, Table 1 shows the overall distribution of will in the sense of wollen.
According to table 1 there are only 22 examples in the CTC in which will has been translated as wollen. As a result, the predictive meaning of will, that has previously been explained, might be more common. Furthermore, most of the example sentences - in relation to the quantity of texts - can be found in the category of EU documents. With the help of the following examples, the second important meaning of will will be analysed.
Chapter Summaries
1. Introduction: Discusses the absence of a morphological future tense in English and establishes the role of modal auxiliaries, particularly "will" and "shall", in expressing future time.
2. An Analysis of WILL: Explores the predictive and volitional meanings of "will" based on corpus data, including its usage in conditional sentences and habitual expressions.
3. An Analysis of SHALL: Examines "shall" as a formal marker of the future, its restricted usage with personal pronouns, and its pragmatic application in offers and questions.
4. Conclusion: Synthesizes the findings, confirming that "will" and "shall" function both as future markers and for expressing volition, highlighting their pragmatic differences.
5. Bibliography: Lists the academic sources and corpora used for the study.
Keywords
will, shall, modal auxiliaries, Chemnitz Translation Corpus, future time reference, volition, prediction, linguistics, corpus analysis, grammar, pragmatics, English language, translation studies, extrinsic meaning, intrinsic meaning.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the primary focus of this paper?
The paper explores how English expresses future time despite the lack of a morphological future tense, focusing on the specific functions of the modal auxiliaries "will" and "shall".
What are the core thematic fields covered?
The core themes include the predictive vs. volitional meanings of modals, corpus-based linguistic analysis, and the formal distinctions between "will" and "shall".
What is the research methodology applied?
The author employs a corpus-driven approach using the Chemnitz Translation Corpus to extract and categorize examples, which are then analyzed against standard linguistic theories.
How is the main body structured?
The body is divided into two primary analytical chapters, one dedicated to "will" and one to "shall", comparing their usages across different text types.
What are the central research questions?
The paper asks whether "will" and "shall" function primarily as future markers, how their usage is restricted by context and pronouns, and how they differ in pragmatic settings like questions.
Which keywords best describe the work?
The work is best defined by terms such as modal auxiliaries, future reference, corpus linguistics, volition, prediction, and contrastive grammar.
How does "will" behave in conditional sentences compared to its future predictive use?
In certain conditional sentences, "will" can express habit or timeless truths rather than a future event, as seen in examples describing physical laws.
Why is "shall" considered more formal than "will"?
Data from the corpus indicates that "shall" is more restricted in its distribution, occurring mostly in formal texts like EU documents and academic papers, while appearing rarely in less formal categories.
What is the role of "volition" in the analysis?
Volition represents the "intrinsic" meaning of the modals where the speaker exerts control over events, distinguishing it from "extrinsic" prediction.
How do "will" and "shall" differ when used in questions?
While both are used for future reference, they are often not interchangeable in questions; "will" is commonly used for requests, whereas "shall" is typical for offers and suggestions.
- Quote paper
- Susan Jähn (Author), 2004, Future Time References: An Analysis of WILL and SHALL based on the Chemnitz Translation Corpus, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/44055
