I. Introduction
1.1 It is impossible to make definite reliable statements about future happenings as
is the case in statements about the past and present. For this reason all future
forms express certain attitudes or speakers' intentions.
Therefore futurity, modality, and aspect are closely interrelated, and this is
reflected in the fact that future time is rendered by means of modal auxiliaries,
by semi-auxiliaries, etc.
Since future reference is a dangerous and controversial area, some scholars
who talk of 'will' and 'shall' alone, speak of a maze through which the native
speaker seems miraculously to be able to walk with a kind of "sixth organ"
(Poutsma 1928:11) which enables him to know exactly when to use them.
Jesperson 1909, revised 1961:24) attributes this inherent complexity to the
fact that the future by its nature is uncertain. R.A. Close, when considering the
use of 'shall' and 'will' is provoked to admit the "tangle of idiomatic and
conflicting usage among native speakers.
future
United States
United StatesThe content of this paper will deal with an attempt to try to untangle the
difficulties and to break down 'myths' which have come into being over the
time, by examining historical and present day approaches to 'shall' and 'will',
and further, by looking at common use of both, as well as special cases, and
finally by considering and comparing the approaches of scholars like Quirk,
Leech, and Smith.
II. Definitions
2.1 In order to illustrate the difficulty that automatically arises when we try to deal
with the presentation of future reference, it is helpful to define some of
the terms that create the problems we have expressing futurity.
2.2 Modality may be defined as the manner in which the meaning of a clause is
qualified so as to reflect the speaker's judgement of the likelihood of the
proposition it...