Future Tense Research Articles

Evidence from bare verbs for the future versus non-future split in Creoles

Abstract Vincentian Creole makes a future/non-future temporal distinction on the basis of the categorisation proposed in several studies, according to which languages combining present and future make a past/non-past distinction and those using the same form for past and present make a future/non-future tense opposition. In Vincentian Creole examples of absolute tense, underspecified (or unmarked) predicates do not generally obtain a future interpretation: only readings in the past tense (for dynamic predicates) or the present (for non-dynamic predicates) are available. Thus, predicates in the future tense are unambiguous regardless of the lexical aspect of these predicates, unlike the context of past and present tense interpretations which I explored in my previous column. Evidence from other English-related creoles supports this claim.

Logical Spaces and Subjunctive Tenses

Apparently, Subjunctive tenses express temporal location, and, in some constructions, the past subjunctive can also express modal values. A long-standing debate exists over whether—even in the latter case—verbal tenses are temporal operators or whether in some constructions they convey temporal meaning, and in others they have a modal value, maybe derived from their basic temporal meaning. The assumption that the basic meaning of subjunctive tenses are of a temporal nature is challenged by the fact that the future subjunctive, which exists in Portuguese, has the same temporal interpretation as the present subjunctive, with which it is in complementary distribution. Moreover, no clear modal difference is observed between the future and present subjunctive tenses. In this paper, I present arguments against the separation of the temporal and modal values of the subjunctive tenses. I posit, instead, that a semantic analysis of subjunctive morphemes must consider ordered pairs of times and possible worlds; only in this way can we adequately capture the observed data and allow a comprehensive view of the system of subjunctive tenses in Portuguese (which will be extendable to Romance languages in general). If we accept this proposal, then the modal as temporal information associated with subjunctive tenses follows naturally, including the systematic futurate reading of subjunctive temporal clauses.

Dead or Alive: A Lifetime Effect of Pomak Nominal Tense in a Self-Paced Reading Experiment

Nominal tense is a cross-linguistically rare and understudied phenomenon, with past vs. non-past being the minimal distinction. In some languages, past nominal tense implies the reading ‘deceased’, while in others, lifetime effects (i.e., implicatures about whether an individual is dead or alive) restrict its use with permanent properties (as with kinship terms). In our study, we investigate for the first time the online processing of lifetime effects in sentences with past nominal tense and kinship terms following contextual information about an individual’s lifetime status (dead or alive). An end-of-sentence acceptability judgment task completes the study. Evidence comes from 25 speakers of Pomak (Slavic, Greece) who use the realis past suffix to form, among others, definite articles, contrasting with a generic suffix for the future, habitual, and irrealis. In collaboration with a local Pomak research assistant, we prepared 80 experimental sentences with past nominal tense in four conditions, manipulating Lifetime Status (dead × alive) and Tense Concord between nominal and verbal tense/aspect (congruent × incongruent). Our results suggest that past nominal tense with kinship terms triggers a lifetime effect which is apparent during online processing. In the sentence final region, dead referents with future verbal tense are read faster, possibly due to the overtness and severity of the violation. Reading disruptions for dead referents while processing nominal tense are also discussed. In the acceptability task, participants rated sentences only based on the agreement of the lifetime status with verbal tense/aspect as the violation is overt and severe. The present study therefore offers support to previous reports of lifetime effects in other languages with nominal tense, highlighting another similarity between nominal and verbal tense.

Time reference in French-speaking people with fluent and non-fluent aphasia (part II): a cluster analysis

ABSTRACT Background Tense production is often impaired in people with aphasia (PWA). Interestingly, the literature suggests that not all tenses are affected in the same way, although the pattern of dissociation is still debated in the literature. The heterogeneity of tense production deficits in PWA might partly explain this lack of consensus in the literature. While this heterogeneity has been demonstrated by descriptive statistics or double dissociations in several studies, no study has used cluster analyses to highlight the main patterns of tense dissociation. Furthermore, the factors underlying this heterogeneity have been little explored. Aims Our study aimed to use cluster analyses on tense production performance to (1) identify the main patterns of dissociation between tenses in PWA and (2) explore the clinical (aphasia type and severity) and cognitive (executive disorders and temporality) factors that may underlie these patterns. Methods & procedures Twenty-one French-speaking participants with fluent and non-fluent aphasia completed a verb inflection production task, as well as language and cognitive tests. Cluster analyses were performed on the differences in performance between the tenses on the verb inflection production task. Generalized linear mixed models and nonparametric statistics were used to analyze the effect of tense and its interaction with the clusters, and to compare the clusters on the clinical and cognitive variables. Outcomes & results Cluster analyses revealed two main clusters, one with worse performances in the past and future than in the present (PWA_1 – 70% of the PWA), and the other with worse performances in the past and present than in the future (PWA_2 – 30%). The type and severity of aphasia, and cognitive test performance did not differ between the two clusters. On the other hand, the PWA_2 cluster had a longer time post-onset than the PWA_1 cluster. Conclusions Our results confirm the heterogeneity of verb inflection deficits in PWA. They suggest that most PWA would have difficulties with past and future tenses, questioning the presence of discourse linking in these two tenses. However, a minority of PWA, who are clinically and cognitively indistinguishable from the others, do not follow this pattern. Adopting the strategy of producing a morphologically simple tense in French – future – could explain the high performance in the future tense and the errors in substituting other tenses with the future in this subgroup. Finally, the clinical and research implications of this heterogeneity, in relation to therapies and the lack of consensus in the literature, are discussed.

Time reference in French-speaking people with fluent and non-fluent aphasia (part I): tense dissociations, task effects and cognitive predictors

ABSTRACT Background People with fluent and non-fluent aphasia frequently have time reference deficits, which could be more pronounced for the past than for the present and future tenses. However, this performance pattern (past < non-past) is not consensual and might depend on the type of task used. Furthermore, the influence of cognitive processes on time reference deficits remains little explored, as does the origin of these difficulties (e.g. pre-phonological, morpho-phonological). Aims The primary aims of the study were (1) to identify time reference deficits and (2) dissociations between tenses in French speakers with fluent and non-fluent aphasia and (3) to specify the effect of tasks on performance and tense dissociations. Secondly, our study also aimed to determine whether time reference deficits were (4) influenced by cognitive functions and (5) explained by pre-phonological or morpho-phonological deficits. Methods & procedures Twenty-one French-speaking participants with fluent and non-fluent aphasia and 21 matched control subjects performed three tasks assessing time reference (verb inflection production, verb inflection selection, and adverb selection) and five neuropsychological tests (verbal and non-verbal working memory, inhibition, flexibility, and temporality). Quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted. Outcomes & results Participants with fluent and non-fluent aphasia had worse performances than controls on the three time-reference tasks. The performance of the participants with fluent and non-fluent aphasia was quantitatively similar but qualitatively different on the verb inflection production task (i.e. different error types). A main task effect was also found: the verb inflection production task was the only one to show worse performances in the past than in the present and future. Regarding cognitive predictors, verbal working memory and temporality were linked to the three tasks assessing time reference. In contrast, non-verbal working memory was associated only with the two selection tasks, possibly related to the mental timeline. Finally, task analysis suggested a pre-phonological (encoding of diacritic features deficit) rather than a morpho-phonological origin. Conclusions Our study is the first to replicate time reference deficit in French speakers with aphasia. It suggests that the type of task might influence the performance profiles observed and help to shed light on the origin of the difficulties. Cognitive functions that have rarely been investigated before may also influence performance. These results have important clinical implications by questioning the tasks used to assess time reference. They also underline the importance of identifying the origin of difficulties in proposing targeted treatment.

Writing direction influences the spatial representations of past- and future-tense forms: Evidence from eye tracking.

The present study tests the hypothesis that the directionality of reading habits (left-to-right or right-to-left) impacts individuals' representation of nonspatial events. Using the blank screen paradigm, we examine whether eye movements reflect culture-specific spatial biases in processing temporal information, specifically, grammatical tense in Russian and Hebrew. Sixty-two native speakers of Russian (a language with a left-to-right reading and writing system) and 62 native speakers of Hebrew (a language with a right-to-left reading and writing system) listened to verbs in the past or future tense while their spontaneous gaze positions were recorded. Following the verb, a visual spatial probe appeared in one of the five locations of the screen, and participants responded manually to indicate its position. While participants' response latencies to the spatial probe revealed no significant effects, their gaze positions along the horizontal axis for past- and future-tensed verbs aligned with the reading and writing direction in their language. These results provide novel evidence that eye movements during auditory processing of grammatical tense are influenced by culturally specific reading and writing conventions, shifting leftward or rightward on the horizontal plane depending on the stimuli's time reference (past or future) and the participants' language (Russian or Hebrew). This spatial bias indicates a common underlying cognitive mechanism that uses spatial dimensions to represent temporal constructs.

A Palimpsest of Hong Kong Futures Across Three Fictions (1962–2046)

Abstract Hong Kong has been located in the future tense throughout various genres of writing and popular culture, serving as a model for free-market neoliberal thinkers, as a proof-of-concept for future national reunification and as the backdrop for techno-orientalist and cyberpunk narratives. Paradoxically, within recent Hong Kong cultural productions and civil society debates is often a strong sense of a foreclosed future. This paper traces three fictions that together navigate the shifting temporalization of Hong Kong, from Wong Kar Wai’s 2046 (2004), which adapts the pulp fiction writer frame narrative from Liu Yichang’s The Drunkard (1963). The film’s anachronistic 1960s SF unexpectedly finds its way into an emerging genre/movement as seen in the video essay Sinofuturism (1839–2046 AD) by Lawrence Lek (2016). These three (science) fiction texts reveal Hong Kong as a palimpsest of temporalities – an impossible fiction of ‘50 years of no change’, which somehow still returns as a site from which to imagine the future.

Translation of English Future Tense in the Novel And Then There Were None

To be a good translator, having linguistic competence is a must. One of the linguistic competencies is the mastery of tenses, for instance future tenses in both the source language (SL) and target languages (TL). The aim of this research is to understand the similarities and differences in forms of future expression in English and Indonesian. The data source was obtained from dialogue or utterances in the novel And Then There Were None and the translated novel entitled Lalu Semuanya Lenyap. In addition, the author will also analyze various translation strategies used by translators in transferring future concepts of SL into TL. This research is descriptive research with qualitative methods. The research results show that English and Indonesian tend to express the future lexically. In the source text, future forms of expression are formed with the auxiliary words "will", "be going to", "be about to", and present progressive tense, while in the target text, future forms of expression are expressed with intentional modality, epistomic modality, and dynamic modality. Meanwhile, the translation strategies used are modulation translation procedures, reduction, transposition, and literal translation methods

On the development of tense-aspect markers in Lingala youth language: a microvariationist look at language change in the verb phrase

Abstract This paper examines language change in two Lingala youth languages from the DR Congo, Lingala ya Bayankee (sometimes referred to as Yanké) and Langila, focusing on processes of grammaticalization and replication. Speakers of Lingala ya Bayankee use a grammaticalized prefix ké- for the near/immediate future tense, derived from the verb kokende ‘to go’ and from a manipulated form of the same verb, namely the prefix dyé- from kodyé (with the same meaning). The emergence and development of this tense marker is traced and compared with the strategies used by Langila speakers. Moreover, the microvariationist lens through which changes in the tense-aspect system of Lingala’s youth registers are examined in this paper looks at different formation patterns of progressive aspect, with two dominant construction types in Lingala ya Bayankee; these are also compared to the strategies used by Langila speakers. While linguistic manipulations have long been the focus of sociolinguistic approaches to the study of adolescent language use, fine-grained differences in tense and aspect marking have received little attention. Here, this paper aims to take a first step, based on rich empirical data collected during various research stays in the urban environment of Kinshasa (DR Congo).

An Error Analysis in Using Passive Voice at Twelfth Grade Students of SMAN 5 Bukittinggi

This research aims to explain the analysis of errors in using passive sentences in class XII students of SMAN 5 Bukittinggi. To explain these errors, the researcher used Bluman's formula to see the percentage of errors made by students, and also the researcher categorized them based on the types of errors made by students. The location of this research was class XII IPS 3 SMAN 5 Bukittinggi with a sample of 33 students. Based on the text, the total percentage of errors for each tense from highest to lowest with a total average, namely from Past Progressive Tense with an average of 38 errors from 3 questions or 23.9% errors. Next, Simple Future Tense with an average of 28 errors out of 3 questions or 17.6% errors. Next, Simple Past Tense with an average of 19 errors out of 4 questions or 15.9% errors. Next, Present Perfect Tense with an average of 24.7 errors out of 3 questions or 15.5% errors. Next, Present Progressive Tense with an average of 17 errors out of 4 questions or 14.3% errors. The lowest is Simple Present Tense with an average of 20.3 errors out of 3 questions or 12.8% errors.

SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT IN EFL STUDENT’S ESSAY: A DETAILED MORPHO-SYNTACTIC EXAMINATION

The purposes of this study are to identify and to describe morphemes in the subject –verb agreement of EFL student’s Essay writing, second is to describe tenses of subject-verb agreement written in the student’s Essay writing. The third is to describe the dominant tenses of subject-verb agreement in the EFL student’s essay writing. The last is to describe the interferences of EFL student’s first language to their essay writing. It was a descriptive qualitative research. The data was taken from third semester of essay writing classes, in the academic year 2023/2024.The data was analyzed using theory of Morpho-syntactic developed by Andrew, Carstairs Charthy and Miller, Jim (2002). Findings revealed that three hundred and forty five clauses that subject-verb agreement contained free and bound morpheme. There were two hundred and fifty nine subjects of clauses contained free morphemes. Then, there were eighty six subjects of clauses contained bound morphemes. Furthermore, there were one hundred and sixty one clauses of verb-agreement contained free morphemes. Then, there were one hundred eighty four clauses of verb-agreement contained bound morphemes. Then, there were two hundred and eighty three clauses that the subject-agreement of clauses was written in present tense. Furthermore, there were sixty one clauses of subject-verb-agreement were written in past tense. Then, there was only one clause used future tense. Then, EFL students essay writing was still influenced by their first language culture. It found that there were one hundred and sixty one clauses contained first language cultures. Further, understanding English linguistics (phonology, morphology, syntax, vocabulary, and spelling) is needed to be learned by EFL students deeply. Then, EFL students’ essay writing was developed significantly.

Ideological and Linguistic Features Analyses of US Presidential Written Discourse addressing Immigration and Terrorism Issues

The aims of this study seeks to examine the underlying linguistics features and ideological concept found in the political speech of American EX President, with a specific emphasis on tweets related to Islamophobia and immigration. The study employs a descriptive and interpretive research design. The corpus of the study consisted of 50 purposely selected Tweets, spanning from 2nd January 2015 to 20th May 2020. Data analysis were conducted using Fairclough's ten-question model (1993). It is found that Trump strategically employed his presidential authority to target Islam and immigration, portraying them as the root cause of terrorism and economic challenges. Trump employed favourable terms while referring to Americans and his supporters, while associating Islam and immigrants with unfavourable descriptors. The findings of this study revealed that Trump employed hyperbole to magnify the perceived threat posed by Islam and immigrants. Trump predominantly employed modal verbs expressing certainty rather than those indicating likelihood in order to demonstrate authority. The future and simple present tenses were commonly used to depict the current threat posed by immigration and the terrorism perpetrated by Islamic groups. The comparative and superlative forms were employed to compare the current state of brightness in the US with its past. The pronouns "we, our, us" were used most frequently to convey a sense of oneness and reduce the perceived barrier between Trump and the audience. Declarative sentences were the most expressive and meaningful acts.

From words to finances: Unraveling the negative net debt-languages nexus

Using an international dataset, we find that firms in countries with languages that lack a clear distinction between present and future tenses, leading to weaker future time references, are more likely to adopt negative net debt. This conservative and non-standard financing policy is notably pronounced among financially constrained firms, those with weaker governance, and those operating in highly competitive industries. Interestingly, this increase in negative net debt with weak-FTR is higher in countries with more established institutions, financial systems, and legal frameworks, which typically exhibit a lower prevalence of financial conservatism and a weaker influence of informal institutions on corporate decisions.

Unlocking the Role of Language and National Culture: Effects on Supply Chain Operations in a Global Context

We investigate how language, an essential part of culture, affects manufacturing firms’ supply chain operations management practices, including the cash conversion cycle and its components. Based on the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, which theorizes that a language's structure may affect how its speakers think, prior studies have established that using the future tense to describe future events increases one's mental distance from the future, reducing a person's concern about it. Building upon this foundation, we hypothesize that firms in weak future-time reference countries are likely to be better prepared for future volatility in demand for their products and therefore carry higher inventory to avoid potential stockouts. We also hypothesize that firms in weak future-time reference countries are more apprehensive about long-term relationships with their customers and hence extend longer credit terms to them. Finally, we hypothesize that firms in weak future-time reference countries have longer operating and cash conversion cycles due to carrying higher levels of inventory and extending longer credit terms to customers. The empirical results using a large global sample of 193,625 firm-year observations from 45 countries support our hypotheses. In terms of economic significance, on average, the cash conversion cycle of firms in weak future-time reference countries is ∼ 11% longer than that of firms in strong future-time reference countries. We also find that the effect of language is dominant over the influence of traditional cultural dimensions. Together, the results suggest that time encoding in the language of a firm is a determining factor in its supply chain operations.

Future tense in Pushkin’s lyrics as a subject for analysis at school

The philological analysis in the article centres on the poetics of artistic time in A. S. Pushkin’s lyrics. Special attention is given to the future tense in its connection with the present tense. The research relied on the methods of literary text analysis and didactic material selection for the works under examination. The focus is on the lyrical poems schoolchildren study mainly in the ninth year. Thematically, they are grouped as follows: 1) freedom as an ideal strived for, loyalty to the ideal; 2) harmonious interpersonal relationships; 3) human destiny and its stages; 4) the inexorable passage of time: death, generational change, immortality. The methodological part of the article includes tasks of the following types: 1) assignments related to generalisation based on identifying symbolic images and analysing the composition of a large body of lyrical texts belonging to different thematic groups; 2) linguistic-stylistic tasks that update students’ knowledge of lexicology (analysis of epithets and Old Church Slavicisms), morphology (the use of parts of speech in grammatical forms due to changes in the lyrical text content), and syntax (the functions of a conjunction in a complex sentence); 3) a speech development assignment based on the verbal drawing technique, which enhances year-nine pupils’ creative thinking and imagination. Assignments and questions are aimed at developing figurative thinking in schoolchildren, their skills of lexical, morphological, syntactic analysis of text, as well as pupils’ skills of identifying the artistic functions of linguistic and speech features of a literary work.

Linguistic-induced life insurance consumption

Linguistic research shows that there are differences in how language distinguishes future events from the present. When a language speaker separates the grammatical structure of a language from the future and present, they also separate the future and present in behavior when facing intertemporal choices. In this study, we investigate language induced time perception as a determinant of cross-country life insurance consumption. The evidence demonstrates that life insurance consumption is higher in countries where there is non-obligatory grammatical future tense in language. This result still confirms the language-insuring hypothesis after considering cultural dimensions, alternative language variables, alternative insurance variable and endogeneity problem. To sum up, the results suggest that language featured by future time reference affects speaker’s time perception and life insurance decision. Our evidence also provides implication for life insurer in multinational businesses.

The Factors of the Distribution of Grammatical Categories and Phenomena in Contemporary Czech

As to the application of the grammar within communication, we distinguish between two contingencies: a) grammatical categories which attach to the objective reality (verbal tenses, number, gender etc.), b) those which do not (in Czech for example the category of case). The relation between grammar and objective reality is not naturally rectilinear and troublefree. It could be complicated by various factors - not only the different type of language but also actualization which we comprehend as the unusual application of a grammatical form (often in order to gain more expressive term) - for example the sentence in the future tense Budeš psát (You will write) functions as that in the stressed imperative mood. To speakers with the advanced knowledge of Czech it is possible to present also special unmarked grammatical categories where a respective grammatical form can have more than one meaning. In the sentence Studuje český a německý jazyk (He studies Czech and German languages) the word jazyk (language) has the form of singular but the meaning of plural. There are many factors which influence the adequate choice of a grammatical category. In this respect the semantics are applied to a large extend and in various ways. The important role can be also played by number and so-called signal words which need the usage of a concrete morphological category (for example after the adverb včera (yesterday) must the preterite tense follow). From the linguo-didactic point of view this theme is very important and it is necessary to go on working it out.

TENSES USAGE IN BEAR’S MAGIC MOON STORY BOOK

Grammar is taught to all language learners as one of the components of the English language. This research is conducted to find out the usage of tenses in children’s book entitled Bear’s Magic Moon written by Suzanne Pinner as children start to learn about language. The tenses theory from Betty Schrampfer Azar is used for the classification of the tenses. The method that is used in this research is qualitative research method. As the result, the researcher found that there are 30 data for the simple present tense, 1 data for the simple past tense, and 4 data for the simple future tense. The simple present tense is used in most of the sentences and the simple past tense are the least used in the sentences of the book.

A Chrysippean Modality

Abstract In this paper, I attempt to explain one of the most controversial views attributed to the Stoic Chrysippus: that the impossible can follow from the possible. My solution finds in Chrysippus a distinction later made by the medieval logician John Buridan: that between being possible (there being a state of affairs that may occur) and being possibly-true (there being some proposition whose truth-conditions are that state of affairs). Buridan and Chrysippus have radically opposing views on the nature of propositions. What their conceptions share is the conclusion that at least some propositions must be contingent beings. They argue for this while maintaining a rigorous commitment to the view that propositions are strictly bivalent. In 2. I explain the Chrysippean passage in terms of a distinction Buridan makes explicitly. In 3. I show how the distinction follows implicitly from the Stoic theory of quantification. In 4. I compare the modality with other aspects of Stoic logic. In 5. I discuss how the distinction behaves in the future tense.

Future past tense of abusive supervision: a narrative inquiry

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to examine the narratives of victims of abusive supervision. We explore the meaning or “lessons” victims derive from those experiences and how they shape the victims’ views of self, work and organization in relation to navigating their subsequent jobs.Design/methodology/approachWe analyzed how appraisals of supervisory abuse transform victims’ narratives and their consequent work attitudes through sensemaking processes. Semi-structured interviews with the past victims of abusive supervision generated a four-stage model of how sensemaking shapes victims’ future work attitudes. Our interpretations were guided through narrative thematic analysis based on the constructionist approach.FindingsVictims’ lessons learned are predominantly framed by their retrospective post-event appraisal of abuse (based on its severity) once individuals are no longer subject to abusive supervision. With greater distance from the abuse, victims can process the abuse and better understand the motivation of the abuser, enabling the process of causal attributions. These attributions further shape victims’ narratives and future work attitudes through a complex interplay of retrospective and prospective sensemaking mechanisms. The victims broadly reported proactive (with higher self-awareness and endurance) and reactive (self-protection, and emotional scars) lessons. A four-stage model was proposed based on our findings.Originality/valueAbusive supervision remains a persistent issue experienced by many individuals at some point in their working life. However, little is known about how victims make sense of the event post-abuse and how this sense-making guides their future work behaviors. Understanding this phenomenon provides insight into how employees navigate through adversity and construct a more positive future. The contribution of this narrative inquiry is threefold. First, it explores how individual appraisals of supervisory abuse frame their (1) mechanisms of narrative construction; and (2) future work attitudes. Second, our findings demonstrate how narrative construction is a fluid process often informed by the process of retrospective and prospective sensemaking. Finally, our research suggests two broader categories of lessons that victims internalize and carry forward to their subsequent jobs.